What Was I Thinking?

My wonderful sister, Caroline - former elementary school teacher and parent of two - recently told me about a really cool art project for the kids.

Here's what you do: you take a salad spinner and put a piece of paper or cardstock in the bottom. You drop small globs of paint onto the paper. Then you put the lid on the spinner and spin! The kids love the action of it and you get really cool spin art - kind of like the what we did at fairs and carnivals as kids... remember? And, with the salad spinner, it's all fully enclosed, so no mess!

I couldn't wait to try it.

Like some kind of fool (it was 4 p.m.), I loaded up all the kids for a trip to Wal-Mart. Maria had been asking for Sprite, so I explained to all of my children that if everyone was good in the store, i.e. no fighting, whining, spitting, hair-pulling, screaming, poking, standing in the cart, opening packages or knocking things from shelves or displays then we could by some Sprite to enjoy at home.

I think we were in the store for... oh, maybe TWO MINUTES before Luke started pulling on Sam's arm, Sam started screaming and Maria started some type of poking torture on Luke. Something must have gotten into Jack, because he was about perfect. I put it into high gear, grabbed some paint, grabbed a salad spinner, zoomed over to get some milk and Diet D.P. (NO SPRITE) and got the h*ll out of there. (Jack did get a treat as he was so well-behaved. Then the little stinker shared with Maria and Luke. Why this time?!)

When we arrived home the children crowded around me as I opened the salad spinner and pulled the paints out. Just in case, we took it all outside to the picnic table. Things went pretty well... at first. Jack and Maria were very interested in the project and loved squirting the paint and working the spinner. (I don't think I bought the best paint... It was gel-like and didn't spin out very well. Cool, but not that cool. We'll have to try some other paint.) Anyway, we did a few cards and set our creations aside to dry. I thought maybe we'd use them as birthday cards for Dan.

Jack, Maria and Luke decided they wanted to finger paint, so I gave them some squirts of paint and the leftover cards. I put some paint on Sam's hand and tried to do a hand print card. Not much luck with that one. He ended up with more paint on himself than the card and the hand print just looked like a blob. Completely unrecognizable. You'd think the wife of a cop would be better at printing someone.

Jack tired of painting, went inside to wash his hands and then headed out to his favorite spot under the pine trees. Maria and Luke continued to paint and I took Sam in for a cleaning.

I went back outside and find Maria and Luke with paint all over themselves, the picnic table, the cards I gave them and the cards that were left to dry. When they saw me they took off running around the yard, laughing like hyenas.

So, I ask once again: What WAS I thinking?!? Mess-free? With my kids??? There is no such thing.