Mud pies

I read this on a blog this week.

"Last week Cow & Gate, a U.K. formula and baby food company, released their "potty list"-- the top activities all children should experience by the age of three. To compile the list the site asked more than 1000 (European) parents what they considered to be the most important milestones toddlers accomplish by age three. Here are the top ten must do activities:


1. Make a mud pie
2. Bake a cake
3. Finger paint
4. Sing loudly in public
5. Climb a big hill
6. Pick fruit
7. Dance without any inhibitions
8. Make sandcastles on the beach
9. Be chased by a monster
10. Jump in a puddle so hard the water went in mummy's shoe too

Notice that learning how to plie, count to ten in Espanol, and categorize reptiles are nowhere on this list. If Gerber had conducted the same survey, I'm willing to bet memorizing the ABC's and completing a 12-piece puzzle would have topped their responses."

 I'm guilty.  Not that we don't have fun and not that we drill our daughter or have her perform hours on end of flash cards, nothing of the sort.  However, I'm the "clean mom".  I don't like getting out the play-doh or letting her run rampant in sand boxes right before nap.  We have done all but 2, maybe 3 (not sure about the big hill), of the things on this list but mud pies we had never done.  Today we made them.

 Throw in some sifting and it was quite the afternoon.  She ended up in nothing but her bright pink Crocs by the end of it.  She went right into the bathtub afterward but we will definitley be doing it again.

I've also added dried lima beans and uncooked bow-tie pasta to her faux kitchen food and she has had the best time with them.  Sorting, counting, cooking, scooping, moving them.  The pasta and lima beans are teaching her more than any other toy we have.  It's impressive.

Next on the list.....pick fruit.  Not sure where we will do that.  Hmmmm, a neighbors yard has a plantain tree..........