Dr Seuss Would Be Proud...?

As you may know, I babysit part-time for two of the sweetest kids you'll ever meet, R & G. I mean, I am really lucky to have these two! When they come, I try to always have a craft to do with all the kids. This week to celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday, we made Cat in the Hat hats. I was pretty excited about this one, so I took pictures.I started out by cutting out the center of a paper plate for the hat brim. I then cut small slits in the top of a paper lunch sack, put it through the paper plate, and taped it to the plate for the top of the hat. I stuffed it with newspaper to hold it's shape, and then let the kids go to town with the red paint (I gave the littlest guy red crayons instead).

As always, the kids were wearing big old paint shirts to protect their clothes, but sweet R reached down under the shirt and wiped her paint covered fingers all over her darling, brand new BabyGap khakis and white socks.

Okay, this is the part where I made a really stupid mistake. I picked up Hannah in one arm and sweet R in the other arm, made sure the other two were safely and contentedly playing, and then dashed down to the laundry room to try and save the pants! The bottle of red paint was up on the counter, out of reach of little G, but apparently not out of reach of Logan. When I returned from cleaning up the first disaster, I found the second one.

The story from Logan went something like this: After I rushed out of the room, Logan decided his hat needed more paint, so he reached up for the bottle of paint, squirted some on his palette, and then set it down on the table. Little G then grabbed the bottle and squirted it all over the kitchen floor. When I found him, he was sitting in the paint (also dressed head to toe in BabyGap, mind you), driving a Hotwheels car through it. Pretty ironic that gave him crayons instead of paint to color his hat to avoid the mess, huh?!

Now that I think of it, it's really quite appropriate: "Thing 1" and "Thing 2" making a crazy mess in the house while the mother is away. Hmmm...sound familiar?

I ordered the kids into the living room, and Hannah screamed in her high chair, while I wiped down little G and the kitchen. This time, I dragged all four kids with me to the basement to wash G's clothes. All I can say is, thank Heavens for washable paint! With a lot of Spray-n-Wash, scrubbing, and a trip through the washer, everything came out (I think. I still need to scrub my floor with bleach. Pink grout just doesn't look that great in my kitchen).

When the hats were dry, we glued strips of white paper around the hats to complete the Cat in the Hat look.

Logan insisted on making this face in every picture!

The hats turned out pretty cute and the kids seemed to get a kick out of them, but I'm not sure they were worth the aggravation. I think we are going to take a break from the paints for a while.