Sanity or Patience: choose one.

Do you ever have one of those moments where you think, "HA! I am sane!" Then you step in dog poo with your bare feet and remember it was your idea to get the puppy...?

Friday, January 22

On play-dough

The best-kept secret stress-reliever.

Yes, it gets stuck in the carpet - usually after your kid mixes yellow with green to make a baby-poop color.

Yep, it smashes into shoes and pants - showcasing, in our case, my son's love of pink.

Yeah, the tools are plastic and break easily - especially when your child seems to think everything is a hammer. Even the scissors.

BUT...

Do you remember playing with play-dough? Do you remember how cool it was to see that barber shop person grow hair?! Do you remember tasting the "pizza" and "cookies" you made out of play-dough? (NO? Just me my siblings?)

Simply mashing a ball of dough in your hands for a moment is a huge stress reducer, even as an adult. Imagine what it does for kids who are feeling overwhelmed, tired, anxious or what have you.

Monsoon is not a low-maintenance kid, I'll tell you. Play-dough works wonders for him when he's wound-up or stressed, but he loves it any old time. Whether we pop open a fresh can of the real stuff (Play-Doh - it smells so good. Or maybe just familiar from childhood?) or make our own, it's nice to dig in and smash things up once in a while.

Yeah. I'm home sick from work today, so guess what we've been doing? Even if you don't have kids, I recommend a small stash of play-dough in your office for THOSE days. Really. I swear it's more interesting than this post (with apologies - I'm not interesting when I'm sick).

8 comments:

Quixotic said...

Ypu, instant memory transfer back to childhood when I pop a can of Pay Doh, and it's actually been a proven stress reliever for kids, esp. those with autism spectrum anxiety issues.

Unknown said...

Sad news! Playdough had not yet been invented when I was a kid!

Unknown said...

OH I love Play doh and silly putty.. those were the best..

Lifeofkaylen said...

The smell of play-doh will always bring about a good feeling. It's like the smell of innocence, the smell of childhood. I miss it.

joanofalltrades said...

I loved play-doh as a kid. I had the play-doh factory where you could make spaghetti and all kinds of things. I hope you feel better.

Hyacynth said...

My two year old just got playdough for Christmas. And now that you mention it, it does seem to calm the storms, which must be why it always emerges are 3:00 here -- the crabby hour.
I'm going to play tomorrow, too. Maybe it'll be good for both of us.

LegalMist said...

Oooh, you are so right! My little guy can sit and play with the stuff for such a long, calm, time! I love it!

LegalMist said...

So I clicked around an while.... I like your blog! And I signed up as a "follower," although my little anonymous avatar won't show up on the first page of followers - I always get stuck at the very end of the list.... sad, isn't it?