Saturday, June 13, 2009

Domestic Goddess entertains the kids

One of the seriously important roles of the Domestic Goddess is to be a SuperMom.

You know the kind. The kind that bakes 30 cupcakes the night before a birthday party, decorates them with fairies and (this is a biggie) has the right sized container to put them in. At the same time, she prepares icecream cone clowns, finger biscuit racing cars, hand-decorated party bags, and there is not a pre-packaged anything in sight.....

The SuperMom aspect also knows exactly how to make to do crafty things with newspaper, string, pipecleaners and split pins. These last two seem to be absolutely essential tools in the SuperMom armoury.

I knew that as a Domestic Goddess, I was perhaps a little underprepared for this sort of thing. So, being a Domestic Goddess, I ensured I was prepared. In my luggage I packed some books with titles such as "Educating and Entertaining Young Children" and "Growing Up with a Smile". So that when we arrived in Abu Dhabi, I could just whip out a book, and manufacture something gloriously entertaining for my children to do.

Excellent stuff! Good Domestic Goddess! Until one morning, when my bored children started nagging for something to do. I pulled out a book and started browsing. It appears my preparation had been incomplete. I had no splitpins or pipecleaners. Nor, having just moved continents, did I have any coloured paper, glue, string, tissue paper, craft sticks, glitter or paint. I had two colouring books and some pencils.

Never-the-less, I was not about to be defeated. I found a solution in one of the books. Home-made playdough! What could be simpler? I hauled out a bowl, and followed the directions.....

2 cups plain flour
1 cup salt
1 cup cold water
1 tablespoon oil

Mix to form a smooth past. Put in saucepan and cook slowly, until the dough comes away from the side of the pan, and forms a ball. When it is cool enough, take the dough out of the pan and knead for three to four minutes. Put the pan to soak immediately.

What on earth could be simpler? Except for the fact that it didn't work.

It came out as this grainy, sticky sludge.

I, however, believing firmly in my Domestic Goddessly abilities, persisted, and gave it to the children. The Little One (aged about 9 mths at the time), prodded it carefully and tried to eat it. The Eldest One (aged 4 at the time) moaned immediately that it was too sticky, but valiantly tried to play with it.

I left to clean the kitchen, leaving them unsupervised for about 5 minutes.

Trying to get the grey, grainy sludge off the table was hard enough, but removing it from the curtains and the lounge suite proved a lot harder.

I'm just fortunate that the pieces I peeled off the children in the bath didn't clog up the drains.....

I've never made playdough again.

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