Holy Smokes. We Made Our Own Playdough.

Play-dough.  I have a love/hate relationship with this stuff.

Unfortunately, my kids have a love/want to marry it relationship with play-dough.

Before we moved to Haiti there were lots of things I heard about and thought, "Hmm.  That sounds cool.  I should try that some day."  And by some day I meant never.  Like making my own granola.  Or cornbread from scratch.  Or chocolate cake that did not come out of a box.  Sounded cool.  Sounded so "one day."  Well, good ol' Haiti has forced me into being the person that well...let's get real....I was not really ever going to become if I stayed in a country where there was a bangin' Target on every corner.

A few weeks ago one of the boys said, "Mom.  I want play-dough to play with.  We never have play-dough anymore."  I already wonder if I've ruined my kid's lives on a weekly basis by bringing them to this country, so when my kids say something like that...it causes me to lose sleep.  "Are you sure you wanted us to come here God...to a place with no hot water and no play-dough? Will my kids look back and despise their play-doughless childhood?"

Thank God for google.  No really.  Can we all take a moment and thank God for google?

I found out play-dough is easy to make.  That means my kids are happy, and I can go back to sleeping (for a few weeks until I think of another thing to worry about for my kids.)  Just give me a few weeks.  I'll think of something.

I found the recipe at this website.  This play-dough turned out so darn great, and it was so easy to make that I wondered why on earth I'd been buying those dumb little jars of it for so many years.

In a medium sized pan add 3 cups of flour.  I sift mine, but only because I didn't want bugs in my kid's play-dough.  My flour has bugs in it.  Jealous?

Add 3 cups water.

1.5 cups salt.  That's a lot of salt.
Don't you like my silly bands?  Those are not really my silly bands.
I let the boys do most of the work.
They even took most of the pictures for this post.
I stood nearby and shook my head, doubting this mess of a mixture
was going to really morph into play-dough.

Then add 6 tsp. cream of tartar.  I have no idea what this stuff is.  I've always wondered why people use cream of tartar.  Surely it's not just for play-dough.  All I know is...I felt super cool using this mystery ingredient.  Now if I use a leek in something, all my culinary goals have been reached.

Add 3 Tbsp. oil

Stir ingredients together over medium heat.  You have to stir the entire time.  No leaving the stove to go assist a two year old with a bathroom trip. No leaving to answer the phone.  No leaving.  You have to stay right there with the play-dough.  Give it your undivided attention.  5 minutes of uninterrupted eye-contact.  Name that movie.

The mixture will start to thicken.

And thicken.  You'll be tempted to walk off and leave your dough.  Don't do it.

At this point in the process Hudson will be melting down, throwing a fit, or trying to swallow a marble.

I ignore him.  I'm busy.  I'm busy stirring play-dough and making dreams come true.

About at this point in the process we found that Hudson was missing.  He wasn't in the kitchen.  I was tempted to stop stirring and run to find him.  Instead I sent Aaron.  He found that Hudson had taken an entire bottle of food coloring straight to Anson's bed and dumped it all out on the bed.  Red food coloring.  All over a bed and the wall.  Looked like someone was slaughtered in their sleep.  Awful.

Aaron dealt with Hudson and bore the burden alone of wondering (while stripping a bed of its sheets, wiping down the wall, and scrubbing food coloring off Hudson's skin) if in fact Hudson will live to be three.  At this rate, it's debatable.  Highly debatable.  If Haiti does not kill us, Hudson may.

The whole stirring process only takes about five minutes.  After the dough turns into a ball in the pan, turn the heat off.  Transfer the dough to a cutting board or other flat surface.

The dough will be lava hot, but you'll want to smash that stuff anyway.  I did.  I risked major burns on my hands because the dough looked so fun and squishy.  Plus my kids were clapping.  We had made play-dough!  At first they were doubtful.  I was too.  They were more doubtful when they saw the ingredients all swimming around gooey-like in the pan.  I was too.  But it came together and wah-lah.  Play-dough!  We didn't care if our hands were on fire.  We were touching that stuff.

Knead the dough until it feels like traditional play-dough.  Heck.  It will feel better than regular play-dough.

I break the dough into two big blobs.  You could divide it however you want.

Then we add food coloring and knead some more until the dough is colored all the way through.
The kids do this part, because by this time my arms feel like they are about to fall off.
You can also add a few drops of essential oils to make the play-dough smell fabulous.

What a cute little kneader.

From one batch you end up with this much play-dough.  Whoa nellie.

We made two batches so we could have four colors.

We store the play-dough in a plastic container.

We've had ours for weeks and it feels so great.  Love this stuff. 

One drawback of homemade play-dough:  Your hands get stained.  Look at my ugly hands.  I have the hands of a 99 year old woman.  It's sad.  If you need to feel better about yourself today, just stare at these hands for a few minutes.  Guaranteed to lift your spirits about whatever you think stinks about your life today.

The kids promptly got to work being creative.  Making the "cheese touch" from the Diary of a Wimpy Kid book.  Hilarious.  Their little hands were happy.  That made me happy.  All was well again in Haiti this day.  Except for the bed sheets and Hudson's skin.  Those were not well.  They were stained.

What I meant to say was...all was well in Haiti for a few moments.  Until I remembered the slaughter scene in the bedroom, and the kids started arguing over whether or not the play-dough colors should ever be mixed.

I forgot about that universal fact.  The kids arguing made me remember.  There are two kinds of people in this world.  The kind that cringe at the thought of play-dough colors mixing..and those who love, love, love to mix the colors.  We have a good mix of both in our house, which apparently causes drama when it's play-dough playin' time.

Which one are you?  Mixer or a cringer?