In the beginning of last week, I spent a lot of time cleaning and trying to get the house ready for our visitor, but the girls and I still managed to get out and have some fun. Naomi and I went to a Messy Night on Monday night, put on by the Parents as Teachers program. They had SO much to do, but Naomi didn't really want to do any of it. The Messy Night was set up in a pavilion and in the grassy area right beside the playground we often go to, so all Naomi really wanted to do was play at the playground. She did spend a few minutes staring at the sprinkler, and she even got close enough to just barely touch some of the drops of water, but that was pretty much all she did at the Messy Night. I am still determined to get that girl to like sprinklers and pools and splash parks... but I don't know how to do it yet!
On Tuesday, we had a Messy Day with our playgroup. One of the moms put it on in her backyard, and she had a lot for the kids to do! She had a big white sheet set up by her swingset, with pans of paint, and balls with different textures to dip into the paint. Then you could throw the balls at the sheet to make a pretty painted creation! She also had spraybottles with paint to spray the sand in the sandbox, a kiddie pool filled with spaghetti noodles of different colors, a kiddie pool filled with blue shaving cream, a kiddie pool filled with dirt and fake bugs to play with, and a bucket full of goop. For the grand finale, she had set up a "car wash" type area for the kids to run through to get cleaned off. I was so excited on Tuesday morning... I had been waiting for this activity for like a month. But Naomi didn't want anything to do with any of it! All she wanted to do was go down the slide and play on the swings. In fact, not only did she not want to play with a single one of the messy day activities, she didn't want to touch anything or anyone who had gotten messy. One of the little girls went down the slide after she had played in the shaving cream, and as she had climbed the ladder to the slide, a drop of shaving cream had dropped onto one of the ladder rungs. When Naomi went to climb up the ladder, she stopped dead when she got to the rung with the shaving cream. She tried to climb around it, on the very edge of the ladder, so she could avoid the little drop of shaving cream. It was pretty ridiculous... I need to break her of this fear she has of getting dirty.
I brought my camera, but I wasn't able to take any pictures. I had both Naomi and Aleta with me, and Aleta was tired and fussy and wanted to be held the entire time. It was pretty much impossible to hold Aleta, play with Naomi, and take pictures all at the same time, so the camera never left its case. Oh well!
