Painting with Pudding--Good, Painting with Pooh--Bad!

Last week we had quite an episode. On Tuesday I decided to let Emmeline paint with pudding. I found this idea online with several people saying it was a great activity for 2 year olds. It's safe if they eat it, it's easy to clean up and it dries like paint. I thought to myself, sounds good.  So I made up some yummy chocolate pudding and we gave it a try. Emmeline and I both had a lot of fun. We got our fingers in the pudding and made some pretty pictures.  As soon as Emmeline gave it a little taste however, she began painting less and less and eating more and more. It was pretty funny. We finished and cleaned up and I thought to myself, "this was a great activity. We'll have to do it again sometime."

The week continued along and Thursday rolled around.  We had a really fun morning. I took Emmeline to the zoo and we enjoyed seeing the monkeys and the birds. Emmeline loves any kind of bird and we spent a significant amount of time in front of the flamingos. We started to get tired and decided to go home for some lunch and a nap. After I put Emmeline down, I decided that Mabel and I could also use naps, so we fell asleep. When I woke up I went to let Emmeline out of her room. She usually plays for awhile by herself in her room after she wakes up. There is usually no problem with this arrangement. This particular Thursday was the exception. I went to get her and could smell a stinky diaper. Oh by, if only that was the extent of the stink. Well I opened the door to her room and much to my chagrin, there was pooh plastered all over her door and trampled all across her floor. The smell was horrible. First off she had to go into the tub and be showered down. A bath wouldnt work because of all the pooh that would be floating in the water. . .and since she loves to splash, there would be dirty water  spread all over the bathroom. So Emmeline got her first shower.  Then I went to work cleaning the mess. Brett got home and was nice enough to help me work. I actually thought that we would have to rent a machine to shampoo the carpet but luckily the Resolve worked really well. (We did have to go through about 2 and a half bottles). Emmeline has never been in so much trouble in all her 22 months on earth. I really don't think that she was trying to be naughty though. I think that she took off her diaper (something shes been learning with potty training) and saw the mess and thought something like, "hmmm this looks an aweful lot like that "paint" I used the other day. Maybe I'll give it a try". . .and then she proceeded to "paint" her door and her room.

The moral of the story, if you are going to paint with pudding, use vanilla or banana cream (perhaps with a drop of coloring) and not chocolate. Especially if your child is potty training. 

Although this was a disgusting experience, now its something we can all laugh about and when I get together with friends and talk about crazy things our kids have done. . .I will have a story that will be tough to beat. lol

For pictures of the various events described above, click on the link to our family picture site.