Little soap box moment, I hope you’ll jump in with me.
I don’t know about you, but when I was a kid, getting messy was part of growing up… I have vague memories of eating dirt and playing with my food and more vivid memories of jumping in puddles, rolling down grassy hills, painting with my fingers and making muffins and cooking with my mom with flour in my hair and batter up to my elbows. And I still say it today, those are some of my happiest memories.
Last fall was a particularly rainy fall and more than once, ma family was stuck indoors because of torrential downpours and really cold weather. After days of not going out at daycare, my daughter would come home miserable, cranky and restless. Well, one week-end, my husband decided that rain or not, he was going for a walk and our daughter was going with him. Rain gear went on and off they went. When she came back, she was SOAKED AND FILTHY! She had jumped in every puddle, laughing and running all the way, falling butt first in a few of them and waving to the horrified people driving by. Funny enough though, months later, she was still talking about the time her and dad went walking in the puddles. RECORD MEMORY HERE!
I think we’ve lost sight of the bigger picture sometimes. In our WAY too busy lives, messes have become equal to waste of time. Nobody wants to clean up, so the solution is to never get dirty. I vowed when I had kids to fight against that gut reaction. It’s not always easy, it means living in a less than perfect environment an dealing with some grime every once in a while. But the memories are completely worth it.
Mmmmm… noodle sensory play!
The only way to eat yogurt!
Who needs brushes?
What are some of your favorite messy times???
Family, Faith, Food and Fabric 
Good for you! I think you are quite right. We got our daughter an easel for Christmas: painting one side, chalk on the other. It is both a blessing and a curse, because she needs help to set up, clean up, etc. But she does much more painting than before! Our favourite messes probably involve gardening: getting your hands in the dirt. And I love cooking, of course…my daughter loves touching flour and rolling dough. Where do you live, by the way? Just wondering, with the references to pouring rain and freezing cold!
LikeLike
Thank you for stopping by! And GOOD FOR YOU as well!
We are in Quebec City Canada. So rain and freezing are pretty much part of the vernacular 7-8 months out of the year! But oh my goodness yes! Gardening! My daughter has requested her own plot this year : She wants cherry tomatoes, carrots and sunflowers… LOL! Where do you live?
LikeLike
Oops, just checked your profile, Belgium! Nice… Never been. Hear it’s gorgeous! My husband’s grand-mother is Flemish. 🙂
LikeLike
Yes, Belgium for the next year or so, but we come from Yorkshire, UK. Will your daughter’s crops grow with the weather? Perhaps you get warm and sunny summers. My children are getting a little square of ground each at a local community vegetable garden this year…very exciting! I love your posts and am very interested in the languages in your family – I think you said your daughter goes to a French-speaking nursery? Do you speak French or English at home? I am half French and my children are bilingual. It’s an adventure!
LikeLike
We speak both : I’m french Canadian but was raised in an English suburb of Montreal, my husband is American born, now Canadian citizen who learned french when he moved here. My daughter’s preschool is bilingual. They have 2 days of English immersion a week. We are all pretty seamless when it comes to speaking either. We have a very fren-glish sort of way. LOL!
LikeLike
Oh, and yes, we have a very nice growing season most years. We just have to start stuff like tomatoes and flowers indoors. 🙂
LikeLike
A little dirt never hurt anyone, me or my little man 🙂 That is our motto and we are sticking to it.
LikeLike
Here here! *raises a fist above her head and punches the air*
LikeLike
Such cutiepies! We were such messy children. So much so that my parents had a huge framed photo of my sister as an infant with ice cream all over her face on the wall for years. We lived next to the bush (a national park) and were always covered with dirt, mud, moss, and who knows what else. We also painted a lot. The one that really stands out is the time we mixed little bits of pretty much everything we could find in the kitchen into some ice-cream and when we couldn’t convince anyone to try it, we started adding toiletries. It was great fun! As a nanny in a former life, I never minded cleaning up after the kids in to the craft supplies, but I learned pretty quickly to be liberal with the newspaper – another less viable option these days. Sticky food mess is far less appealing though.
LikeLike
Good job! Yeah, we have this huge king size flat sheet that gets spread out anywhere a mess is about to happen. 🙂
Where is “The Bush” National Park?
LikeLike
It’s the bush, not The Bush. I’m from Sydney, so any expanse of trees – what you might tentatively call a sort of forest – is referred to as the bush. I’m not sure where the name comes from. The park was called Lane Cove. Sorry, I meant to put in something about that when I wrote, but I guess I got distracted by all of my messy memories.
LikeLike
It’s okay! It’s always lovely to extend the chats! 🙂
LikeLike
You’re so right. You find out so much more about people when you have something other than a single post.
LikeLike
My kids love jumping in puddles, it’s a daily occurence here for about 6 months of the year (very North of the UK). My 4th child especially loved it and would come home wet & muddy from the school walk every day when we were going to pick up her older brothers. Everyone else would look at me like i had 2 heads when i allowed her to do it!!
LikeLike
Exactly… My husband said that to me as well. He was like “they looked at me like I was ruining THEIR day because now, their kids will ask to do it too!” LOL!!!
Thanks for stopping by!
LikeLike