During the summer, we used a lot of old printouts for paper airplane construction to fly off the back porch that's 25 feet in the air. Throw a series of planes off of it, run down to the yard to retrieve them, repeat. But again, poor visibility has left our fleet grounded and passengers stranded in the terminal. We've tried throwing paper airplanes inside the house, but it's just not as cool since it can't soar through the air without hitting a baby, Mommy, doggie, or other carbon based substance and crashing in flames.
Sure, I could Google "Arts and Crafts for 3 year olds" but that would be easy. And lame, try it.
Other websites suggest things like tracing your hands or feet. Done that, not interested. And how many drawings can you color before you get bored? With my three year old, that answer is zero. We needed something with testosterone. Some science experiments, maybe a few explosions. Small explosions that result in little to no damage to the home. Why build a popsicle stick star when we can build a 3,803 piece Lego Death Star together?
Easy, right? Unfortunately, the wife raised a few annoying, yet somewhat valid points. The suggested age is 14, not 3. We have a baby and this kit has 3,803 chocking hazards. Wouldn't $400 be better spent on things like electricity, diapers, and/or the mortgage? Ugh. So we went to Michaels the craft store. We spent $22 and walked out with a wooden snake, helicopter with working rotor kit, cannon kit, 300 popsicle sticks, multi-colored cardstock, and a monster mouth candy mold with three different colored bags of melting chocolate. The wooden cannon was on clearance for 9 cents and they had about 40 of them. I'm kind of regretting only buying one. A few nights work and I could conquer Sesame Street.
When we got home, I asked him what he'd like to do first. The wooden snake, which is bare wood with four different paint colors. I suggested we paint the snake green, then add blue, red, and black effects. He actually agreed with my initial suggestion, for the first time ever. At least he let me paint it green for the first 10 seconds. Then he wanted to paint it black. So we stopped, washed off the paint brush, and switched to black. For 10 seconds. Then blue for 10 seconds. I ignored his demand for red and told him we're painting the snake blue. While I helped him paint the snake by taking the brush away and doing it for him, he helped me by rubbing his hands on the wet paint and sticking a finger in the red.
Okay, let's switch to the popsicle sticks cause those are awesome. I googled popsicle stick crafts. Wow, do you really need a website to teach you how to make a popsicle stick picture frame? We don't make picture frames, we break them. There was one suggestion for an airplane that flies with nothing but 5 sticks. Now we're talking. This is the plane and a picture of how well it flies.
If only the flight ended like that, it would have been worth it. Owen's review is pretty scathing, "That's not a plane."
Okay, let's try the rubber band helicopter. Owen decided he wanted to paint the helicopter body, tail, rotor, skids, stabilizer, and rubber band the color black. Great, he's already seeing black Army helicopters. I think I heard him say something about Thomas the Tank Engine and the grassy knoll. Again, I decided to make the tough parenting decisions and go with awesome color scheme of black body, red trim, yellow rotor with black tips, and blue supports for the black/red skids. In true 3 yr old patience, there were fingerprints in the paint, but we were able to assemble and glue the pieces together. It was even harder to keep him away while the glue dried. Installation of the rubber band and a quick lesson on winding the rotors and he LOVED it.
Until 2 days later when he got mad about something like getting milk instead of juice and threw it down, breaking the helicopter. I tried my hand at maintenance, but it was a total loss. I made the mistake of mentioning it was in the trash the next day and he instantly went pouty and looked into the garbage can longingly. The thing cost a buck, I'm going to have to get 10 of them.
I think the one HUGE hit was the monster mouth candy. He couldn't really help with it, other than standing on a chair and watching. It makes it easier to keep him there when you feed chocolate chips into him. Expert parenting tip: give the kid sugar right before your spouse comes home and suggest they spend time with their dear child while you get out of the house. While actually making the candy was okay, eating the monster mouth candy is really cool. Spread it over 3 or 4 days and you can use it as a disciplinary aide. "If you don't stop banging toy A into high def television B, you won't get any monster mouth candy!"
I went back to the popsicle sticks and went with one online idea. Owen didn't want to color it, but he likes to put his face behind it and yell "Ribbit!"
I also came up with my own idea, it's only 22 popsicle sticks and an onion. I have 250 more popsicle sticks and onions are cheap, should have a squadron soon. It may not be 3,803 pieces, but it's not a choking hazard so it's only dangerous to Rebel scum and Sesame Street. I'm gunning for you Muppet-wannabes.
CK
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