Mrs. Do-MESS-tic: one last hurrah

Tomorrow my baby girl goes to Kindergarten.

I'm excited for her. I'm sad for me. I'm relieved for her brother. I'm...well, a mom on the night before her little girl goes off to school.

It's kinda a big deal, huh? I remember my first day of Kindergarten- at least in a foggy, tinged by photographs and other people's accounts kind of way. It's the sort of life moment that sticks with you. I know she'll do great, and my biggest hurdle will be to get her to come home with me again upon pickup. But it starts a new phase in her life, and that's just... odd.

[Sucking it up]

Anyway, today was kind of a last hurrah of sorts. A-one-last-special-weekday-time-with-mommy kind of day. Sleeping in and staying in pjs and projects and crafts and playing with Playmobil and (the dreaded) My Little Ponies. We had fun.

I saw this paint-in-bag idea online and thought it might be something the kids could do together. It was a hit, and it let me make a special breakfast this morning without too much stress. In fact, they were so well received, that the bags remain up and I don't intend to take them down anytime soon. That's saying something!

Simply put blobs of different colored paint in a ziplock bag and tape it to the window. As the paint smears and mixes, sunlight comes through, lending a lovely stained-glass effect.

I also put a bag with glitter, sequins, water, and a bit of oil up. This one was little man's favorite, and it soon developed a slight leak. I just double bagged it after that, and placed it flat on his kid table so he could keep playing with it.

As the colors mixed, some really neat patterns resulted...

MacKenzie found it the perfect medium for doing her beloved swirly-whirlies.

And Asher loved to sing me the ABCs while I drew out the letters.

But my favorite was their handprints. Sigh. Stop growing already!!

During naptime, the soon-to-be-scholar and I did a bit of science. This slime recipe I found while researching the borax snowflakes from a few weeks ago. I saw another version of it using glow in the dark paint, and am dying to give that a try. But I didn't feel like heading to the store for the paint today so we just settled on green food coloring.

(The recipe:

1 cup water mixed with one 4oz bottle of Elmer's glue.

Dissolve 2 teaspoons Borax into 1/3 cup hot water, and add a bit at a time to the glue mix.)

It'll all clump together like magic. It has the same consistency as that "fart" slime that Spencer's Gifts used to sell. Remember that stuff?

It's pretty awesome, and really not very messy at all. Great for squishing between fingers and pretending to have boogers. Important lessons for all kids entering kindergarten, don't ya think?