Once upon a time I did fascinating things over spring break. I traveled to far off countries, like Spain and Mexico. I helped build things, like houses. I had exciting adventures, like nearly sliding off the side of a mountain in a blizzard.
But times have changed... my, how they have changed...
This year I spent my spring break entertaining two small children in various ways: playing with our food, writing secret messages, and turning crayons into magic molten lava. Not quite as exhilarating as the adventures I mentioned earlier, but still just as life-changing... maybe... somehow...
Anyway, we have this book of kid concoctions that I've been wanting to try for a while now. So I marked several pages and we tried to hit at least one experiment a day. Unfortunately, several of the experiments were fantastic failures. But we still had fun trying.
On day 1, Emma tried writing secret messages with invisible ink (lemon juice) for her dad to find when he came home. (She insisted the lights had to be off, or she couldn't see her invisible message.)
The secret messages are supposed to magically appear when the paper is held up to heat, from a light bulb or toaster, for example. Well, we did everything short of pretending it was bread and actually putting the paper in the toaster itself, and we didn't have much to show for our singed fingertips. We could see the vague outline of a few of the things Emma had drawn or written, but that was about it. Maybe our lemon juice was too old? Not sure about that one.
On another day, we unwrapped crayons and melted them in the microwave, in hopes of creating new favorite crayon colors and shapes. The book suggested pouring the melted crayon wax into molds to create new shapes, and better yet, layering the colors to create a rainbow effect. Yeah... um, that didn't go quite as expected either. The shape was good, but the layers would not make nice and stick together. So after it was all cooled and dry, it cracked all apart and fell into the garbage. *sad face*
We tried making goopy gems and jewelry, and that also fell into the garbage. Hmmm... I was beginning to look at my wonderful book with a raised eyebrow.
So Wednesday, seeing as how it was St. Patrick's day and all, we decided to go with an old tried and true stand-by: construction paper, glue sticks and crayons (un-meltified ones). I cut out hearts and Emma made them into shamrocks, while wearing her fanciest green dress-up dress.
Later in the week, we had a little more success. We made applesauce-cinnamon dough and played with that for a while. Mix equal parts applesauce and cinnamon and wallah! We took out some cookie cutters and cut the dough into various shapes. Then we let them dry for a few days, and fill our dinning room with an unbelievably strong cinnamon smell. They dried quite nicely, though, and we may experiment with letting them be car air fresheners or possibly Christmas ornaments later in the year. Don't you hope we draw your name for the gift exchange this year!
There was at least one other experiment, escaping my thoughts right now, that we tried with little success. So we gave up on the book (at least for now) and brought out the Play-Doh. It's hard to go wrong with Play-Doh.
Then at the end of spring break, Grandma came so hubby and I could jet off to a tropical destination for a few days of R&R before rejoining the rat race! Well... not really. Grandma did come, but there was no jetting anywhere. Just a little break from the kiddos--but sometimes that's just as good as jetting off, right?
Anywho, so that's how I spent my spring break this year. How about you? What fascinating adventures did you have?
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