We went out for dinner last week and because I’m a seasoned and experienced mom of three, I brought exactly nothing to keep my kids occupied while we waited for our food. The number one tip I give to people going out for dinner with young children is to bring an activity for the kids; books, crayons and paper, small toys or games, that kind of thing. In actual practice, I’m never organized enough to grab that stuff.
But I also don’t like handing over my phone because of my high parenting ideals. Hahahaha. No, it’ s because my phone is an expensive piece of very nice technology and it’s pretty much the only thing I have that’s off limits. Besides, they’ve already smashed two of them. And they’d fight over it.
At eight and five, my older two kids can basically suck it up and just wait for the food. We can try to engage them in actual conversation. Edgy! But the not-quite-three-year-old needed something to keep her from sliding under the table and rolling around on the floor. I dug around in my purse and found a notebook and a pen. Perfect!
“I want to draw too!”
Fine. I ripped out a page from the notebook and handed it to the five-year-old and continued to rummage. There’s got to be another pen in here somewhere, I thought. Nope. Nada. Not a chance.
Then I had a flash of desperate genius. I pulled out a red lip gloss and handed it to the two-year-old. “Want to paint, Mary?”
And she loved it. LOVED. IT. She was so focused on her art work, she couldn’t wait to finish her food and get back to it.
I’m definitely doing this again. But first I have to stock up on lip gloss at the dollar store because that $15 L’Oreal gloss in Rebel Red was not my most economical choice. Don’t get me wrong; still worth it.
*There’s no way I’m going to think of something clever every week.
2 replies on “Hack of the week*: Lip gloss painting”
While I applaud your ingenuity, it is also economical to put those little packages of crayons, that you get free at lots of restaurants, in your purse for later use.
Also, I used to let my kids “decorate” me with stickers – as many as they wanted, for as long as they wanted, because I could close my eyes for the duration.
But the crayons wouldn’t have kept her occupied for nearly as long. She loves painting and this was like painting for long.