Craft Wednesday

Today's craft. Build and decorate a gingerbread house with my 2 year old. I had big intentions to have a fun time doing something Christmasy with my daughter. I put on Christmas music, put on our cute little aprons and got out the mixer to make the icing. Well, it started off great, we mixed the ingredients for icing, which she loves. Once the icing was made, it was time to assemble the house. So, I let her lick the mixing sticks, or whatever you call those things while I assembled the house. Sweetly, she asked if she could lick my mixing stick when she was all finished with hers. Because I was still assembling the house, I sweetly replied, "sure!" So, only 30 minutes in and she had already eaten a lot of icing. Next, came time to decorate the house. I put each candy in its own dish and expected her to not eat it. Yeah right. She had no interest in decorating, only eating. Even "accidently" bumping her finger into a glob of icing and saying, "oops! it's okay, I'll just lick it off!" (she did that about 20 times) As time passed, I grew more and more frustrated with her eating so much and sneaking bites, she was disobeying me over and over and I was so annoyed. By the time the house was complete, she had eaten a pound of candy and icing. I was covered in sticky, thick icing and could only think about cleaning up my messy table and counters. Looking back on it, I am proud that I did not loose my temper and end up putting her in time out or worse. I mean, my expectations were clearly too high. If you put a plate of warm chocolate chip cookies in front of me and expect me not to eat them only just stare at them, I would probably sneak a few bites myself. I have to remember she is only 2. Candy is still a novelty in her world. Nevertheless, we have a somewhat pretty gingerbread house to enjoy the this Christmas season. My advice is not to do this project with your 2 year old, unless you don't care if they eat everything in sight!