a pinteresting experience

I love staying at home with Katelyn every day but sometimes I wonder if she gets bored waking every morning to my familiar face and our daily routine.

breakfast, chores, play time, reading, naps, lunch, hanging out with Grandma, dinner, rinse, repeat...

We have a good routine and I crave a schedule so I absolutely love it.  My day starts and ends the same way and usually has a certain number of ordered steps to follow.  It makes me happy.
But sometimes I feel like I should be exposing Kate to a wider variety of activities and educational experiences.  I blame Pinterest for this because the rational side of me says that reading book after book after book, taking walks and going on outings, and talking to her all day long is plenty of education for a toddler.  But then I see Pinterest and I think, "She should probably be speaking a foreign language by now..."

One of the activities Pinterest recommended was painting with pudding.  "Fine," I thought, "We can paint like Picasso."  Only I didn't have pudding so yogurt would have to do.  I dumped out a container of Yoplait onto Kate's high chair tray and she just looked at me perplexed.  "Here," I said, "Paint a picture."

The day before I had made salt dough for her to play with and when I put it on her tray, she gave me that same stare.  When I pressed her little hand into the dough, she looked up at me horrified and yanked her arm back.  Finally, she licked it so I took it away and dumped it into the trash.

I thought to myself, "Great.  There goes my last strawberry flavor."

Eventually, she licked the yogurt and decided it was good so she started using her little fingers to scoop blobs of pink to her mouth.  Then she started playing in it.  She was entertained and I was amused.  It was great until she trying slapping the tray and sent yogurt splattering all over the wall.  But even then, it was funny and the walls wipe off so we both just laughed and laughed and laughed.