The Best Intentions...

Wednesdays are long days for Emily and I, as both our husbands volunteer with the middle school youth group in the evening.  So it is just us and kids at home all day and all night.  Last Tuesday I texted Em to see what we could do to entertain ourselves together on Wednesday and make our day a little shorter.  We contemplated the zoo, but the forecast said 90 degrees and that just didn't sound fun.  So I believe my exact words to her were, "Do you just want to come over here and have some chaos?"  Because really -- with a 4 year old, 2 year old, 1 year old, and newborn -- that's all it really is.  But at least we can have some company while we do it, right?

So, Em and the kids came over Wednesday morning.  We ate donuts (well, most of us did--Avery and Izzie both just lick the frosting off of theirs), and then we told the kids to go play while we worked on a project.  I had seen soap mud on Pinterest last year and have been wanting to try it with Izzie ever since, but it always seemed like a lot of work.  I figured it was worth it if there was another set of hands and two more kids to enjoy it.  And what isn't to love about soap mud?  It's gloopy and messy and also smells delicious and clean.  You just tear up toilet paper into tiny pieces, grate a few bars of soap, add warm water, and mush mush mush!  What could go wrong...?

List of Things that Could Go Wrong:

#1  It took two adults an entire hour to grate three bars of soap and tear up one roll of toilet paper into tiny pieces (we both probably have carpal tunnel).  Do you realize how much toilet paper is on ONE roll?!?

#2  Turns out, NO KIDS were interested in this.  ZERO.  Not the crazy four year old boy.  Not the mud and dirt and mess loving two year old girl.  Even Avery, who is usually game for anything, tried it for a minute before deciding the bucket of water next to it was more fun.  WATER.  Do you know how long it took us to fill the bucket of water?  30 seconds.

#3  To get kids interested, I suggested throwing the soap mud at them.  I thought they would think that was funny.  As it was, Caden ran screaming and Izzie cried.  She was completely offended.  The rest of the day she kept asking, "Why did you throw that soap at me?"

#4  I ended up doing the unthinkable and bribing Caden and Izzie to just put their feet in BY OFFERING A COOKIE to anyone who did.  I was desperate.  Folks, it took us an HOUR to make this stuff.  We wanted results!

#5  Once they put their feet in and decided it wasn't that bad, Caden started throwing it at us.  Can I just say that soap in your eyes REALLY HURTS...

#6  The soap and toilet paper made a lovely paste that stuck to everything--clothes, skin, hair, the driveway...  I hosed the cement off for half an hour, and it still looks awful.  (And while I hosed, Izzie and Avery had a slap fight over our one pink chair, Caden picked Izzie up to console her and dropped her on the cement, and Avery stuck the end of a bicycle pump in her mouth and Caden proceeded to try to blow her up...so it was pretty much a disaster every way you looked at it.)

1 hour of prep + 5 minutes of unenthusiastic playing with it + 30 plus minutes of clean up = SOAP MUD NOT WORTH IT.  We've tried it for you.  Don't bother.

Laughing as we are the only two anywhere near the "super cool soap mud"!

Avery enjoying the bucket of water.  She almost fits.

As Emily said, it sort of just looked like Levi spit up all over the driveway...

Caden giving it a go, Avery still enjoying the bucket of water, Izzie
completely upset by the whole event.  She apologized all day, "I'm
sorry you got soap in your hair.  Why did we do that, Mommy?"

And this is when we decided to be done...

Emily went and got Burger King so we didn't have to
bring the kids inside to eat.  Filthy children eating fast
food on a dirty driveway.  Perfect end to a perfect day.

And what is the sweet little boy up to these days, you might ask?  Well, Levi slept through the whole soap mud fiasco (thank goodness--the last thing we needed was an infant out there), but we finally started working on tummy time with him.  Literally the fourth time he'd ever been on his tummy he held his head up like a pro!  You'd think we were good parents that worked on this every day with him, but it was just a happy accident.

This was the third time we tried tummy time...

...obviously it's not always a success (but at least he's not screaming!).

But here's the next time we tried.  Look at that control -- and his bobble head.
Apparently it's a bad angle, I promise he doesn't look that bald and disproportionate.