Paint in a Bag - oh yeah, baby.

So, last week I was searching for activities for Sweet Pea to do while the boys worked on their schoolwork.  She often ends up coloring, tracing letters, playing games working on learning apps on the iPad, and playing with Play Doh.  She’s bored out of her skull happy and content, but I really wanted to give her some other options.

I found this marvelous idea to put paint in a Ziploc bag and have her fingerpaint through the bag.  No mess, no painted hands/walls/tables/clothes/dogs?!  I’m in!  Sweet Pea was all for it – after all, it’s finger-painting.  Hello!  And then I put the paint in the bag, so proud of my ability to try someone else’s idea creative genius, and heard:

“Paint in a bag?  Really, Mom?  Can’t I paint like a normal kid?”

Yep.  That pretty much summed up the whole two minutes that she played with it.  Her little eyebrows were raised in disgust and she was muttering to herself the entire time.  “This is the stupidest craft ever.  How can I paint if I can’t even get dirty?  Why don’t brothers have to paint in a bag?!”  If she knew the Boy in the Bubble story she probably would have compared herself to him at that point – only in reverse.  In our house, the germs are in the bubble and the kids are on the outside.

Mmmhmm…that’s not working out so well.

So, if you feel like torturing entertaining your children for hours (or giving them something to complain about for a few days), may I suggest squeezing some paint in a gallon-size Ziploc bag, zipping it up, and telling them it’s the newest thing in finger-painting since, well, getting messy.  It’ll be a blast.  Really.