A Busy Mommy: My Love/Hate Relationship With... Play-Doh

I really shouldn't say hate...it is such a strong word. I really do love play-doh, and so does Ben. He brings his Play-Doh out every day to play with it, and is very at putting it back when he's through. He loves looking at the idea instructions that come with and trying to create the butterflies and such. He also loves making hot dogs and burgers, french fries and other types of food for us to "eat".

So through all this creativity, what is it that I don't like???? MIXING THE COLORS!
Call it O.C.D., call it crazy, I don't care what you call it, as soon as those colors start to mix I must make them a solid color! I can't just leave the swirls and stripes alone...I have to knead and knead it until it becomes uniform once again.

Now, trying to get any child to not mix the colors is near impossible, and really not worth the battle, so I just suck it up and mix those colors. After about the tenth time playing with his play-doh we're left with a big hunk of an ugly greyish purple hue that really doesn't make much besides the odd alien.

Now, I've tried to cheap out an make our own with flour and water, food coloring and such, It really is NOT the same. Its sticky and yucky, doesn't have near the smooth texture of Play-Doh, and you know what...it isn't any cheaper!! A container of play-doh is usually under a dollar!

Now for Christmas Ben has made it clear that he would like the Play-Doh Ice Cream Shop, and I will get it for him (Well, Santa will) but I can just see me now on boxing day, kneading mixed colors just to get that uniform color once again.

There is a few tricks I've learned about Play-Doh for those who are like me and can't handle the swirls. (Though I do find them pretty)

#1 - Save your Play-Doh Containers - When your kiddo forgets to put their Play-Doh away and it dries up....save those containers...when you've finishes mixing colors and have created a new one, it will then have it's own container to go into.

#2 - If you have a big chunk of swirls and swoops, many mixed colors all combined, separate the blob into sections and try to mix the like blogs together. You'll get a bunch of different colors that way.

#3 - When you do end up with that big purple/grey blob use that as foundation for your kids creations....make it the ground or hills then they can add to it with their ever so vibrant newer colors.