Play-Doh

You know what is hard? Keeping this person entertained.


That's what. Seriously, it starts as early as 6:59AM. "What can I do now?". I can feel my heart beat getting faster as my anxiety grows. She is completely incapable of coming up with something to do on her own. The problem with that is that she gets it from me. So the combination of neither of us being capable to come up with something to entertain her for more than three minutes and her incessant "WHAT CAN I DO NOW?" leads to excessive yelling by about 7:04AM. It's infuriating.

So I took one for the team and came up with something for us to do this morning. I made play-doh. It was freaking awesome. Not only does it not stink like regular play-doh, but it is more pliable and fun. Fun because we made it. And it kept her entertained for a full 40 minutes, which is really saying something around these parts. Especially since in a fit of rage several months ago I gave away most of our play-doh accessories....so they played with play-doh with a can of black beans as their rolling pin and three cookie cutters. Nice.

Homemade Play-Doh
by: Laurie Willis, one of the finest people I have ever met. Seriously, she's great.

1 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup salt, of the plain old variety
1 tablespoon Alum (in the spice aisle)
2 tablespoons mineral oil (in the laxative aisle, walk it with pride baby)
1 tablespoon glycerin (near the bandaids/rubbing alcohol)
food coloring
1 1/2 cups flour

Mix first five ingredients together in a pot, warm the pot but don't bring it to a boil. Just let it get nice and hot (like you can stick your finger in it without going to the ER but you wouldn't want to take a bath in it kind of hot) and the salt almost dissolves but not quite. You can stir a little, but not too much. After you have reached this obscure temperature put it in your mixer and add the flour, start mixing, then drop in a few drops of your color of choice. I only had yellow, and I am pretty sure I stole it from said Laurie Willis. Mix it for...oh say...like a minute or two minutes, till it looks like dough. Then you can let it sit till it cools off a bit (it gets less sticky as it cools). Oh also you can add a nice little drop of something to make it smell nice, like peppermint. But you don't have to. Heaven knows I didn't. It makes enough play-doh for about three kids. Perfect.

Okay, recipes like this stress me out, but it worked out just fine! I whisked it a couple times, once at the beginning and a little at the end, but I was scared to death it wouldn't turn out. It was great! It's kind of an investment at the get go (alum was like $2.50 and so was the glycerin) but you get big bottles and now I have enough stuff (except food coloring) to make play-doh for life. Woot.

Please don't eat it.