A few weeks ago, Maddie and I enjoyed a "Maddie Monday" (a non-work day for me, no daycare for her -- probably one of the few we'll get together this year) and went to Studio Grow. It's been awhile since I've taken her, and it was fun to see how much she enjoyed many of the activities that she was too young to get last time. She particularly liked the arts and crafts room. At one of the tables, the studio had laid out Play Doh and cookie cutters, and we spent probably 15 minutes "making cookies."
A few days later, she and I were playing outdoors on one of our unseasonably warm afternoons, and I remembered that we had some cans of Play Doh that Maddie received as a door prize gift at a birthday party last year. She had been pretty indifferent to the stuff when we first brought it home, so I had stashed it in a cabinet in the laundry room. I pulled it out and got the Christmas cookie cutters that we had used to make sugar cookies together during the holidays, and we started making cutouts with Play Doh on the picnic table.
Thus began the Great Play Doh Obsession of 2009. Every morning after that afternoon, she came upstairs from bed and immediately went to the back door, asking to go "OUTside 'n' play Play-Dohs!" (even though it was still dark). Finally we allowed the Play Doh to move back indoors.
What has been so interesting about this "Play Dohs" obsession is that it's the first time I've seen her really use her imagination. She spent days making little cookies with the Play Doh, laying them out on her tea tray, and putting them in and taking them out of her little play oven – honestly, it's the most attention she's paid to that play kitchen since she got it for her birthday. Then she made us each birthday cakes and put her little birthday "candies" (candles) on them, singing "Happy Birthday" to us as she offered them up. She even made one for Bentley.
We started with one can of white Play Doh and one can of blue, and within several days we had a lot of funky, dried out light blue Play Doh because she had mixed it all together. With no end in sight to this Play Doh obsession (train set forgotten, all other toys sorely neglected, and her former obsession, "paintings" with the art kit from her grandparents, completely out of her mind), I went on the hunt for new Play Doh to replace the old stuff. I found a Play Doh Fun Factory at Longs, and I think I was as delighted to bring that thing home as she was to see it. Within an hour after its arrival the new yellow and blue Play Doh that came with the Fun Factory became one big green lump, and Maddie was making spaghetti and meatballs in her little pots and pans for all of us to eat for dinner.
The Fun Factory kit came with a little brochure advertising the other Play Doh sets available. Maddie got hold of this and pointed out everything she wanted (she was mostly enamored with an underwater themed one featuring a big purple octupus, as well as a Dora set and an ice cream parlor that costs $50), then spent the evening telling anyone who would listen about her wish list (including her grandma on the phone, who was probably confused as Maddie picked up the phone and greeted her in her bossy little voice: "I want oct-pus NOW, and Doh-wa, and ice cweam").
Luckily Maddie had some Amazon gift cards leftover from her birthday and Christmas, so that evening I got online and ordered her the octupus and Dora playsets. The Dora one arrived pretty quickly, and the Fun Factory was old news. (I got it out for her last night and she actually told me, "No, don't want this, put away!")
Play-Dohs are at the center of our universe right now. It's all she wants to do; sleeping, eating and going to the park are secondary priorities. Our biggest blessing is that the rug in our living room is already old and soiled, because now it also contains flecks of blue, green, and strange shades of purple that will be ground into it forever. I can't wait to see how long it will be before she moves on to the next big thing, or whether Play Dohs will always have a special place in her heart.






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