By the time you have a toddler, you probably know the best way to keep a small child occupied is to show them something they’ve never seen before (no, not TV). And how about something that they can smoosh, squeeze, or secretly taste a tiny nibble of? Even better!
In our not-so-recent blog blast, SusieJ generously imparted a bit of wisdom that must come only with being the mother of four boys. Her amazing post regarding eating out with the whole family (especially for those of you who aren’t rookies, but are dragging a larger crew around with you) is packed with tips. My favorite part, however, is the suggestion to ask the chef or waiter for some dough for your children to play with. I’ve been to a Mexican restaurant where giving the kids tortilla dough is part of their schtick, and it’s just brilliant. I’ve never thought to make this special request at a different restaurant before, and you can bet your sweet buns that I’m going to start.
The uncooked dough is smooshy and wonderful to touch, and guaranteed to keep kids busy making “doughnuts” and snakes. And if you want to get all Martha on me, you can even bake it when you get home. Or just toss it and be grateful for a relatively peaceful meal.
Honored to be mentioned by the Rookie Mom Gurus here…
I will say that my youngest son, age four, insist that I turn his lump of dough into an Elephant every time. Thankfully, I think I’ve got that sculpture mastered… finally.
That really is a great idea and could lead to tons of entertainment time for the kids!
Wherever they sell pizza, they have dough. My whole extended family enjoyed this at Pyramid Brewery in Berkeley. I just asked the waiter to ask the chef and they complied!
Can I say…. IN THEORY, I love this idea.
IN REALITY, I think to attempt this you need to not have a Messy kid. I capitalized “messy” to make it clear this is a special breed of children. This is what my Messy kid did with ONE marshmallow in a car for less than 5 minutes:
http://jonandlaura.blogspot.com/2009/06/day-in-life-now-with-more-marshmallow.html
He is one of those kids that, when childless parents see him, they think, “WHO is that mother that allows her child to go out like that?”
Here was a typical day at day care:
http://jonandlaura.blogspot.com/2009/10/why-we-have-lot-of-clothes-for-boys.html
And let us not forget this one, just two days after the previous post.
http://jonandlaura.blogspot.com/2009/10/phone-photo-friday_16.html
My siblings and I recently met up at a Mexican restaurant for dinner with all of the cousins and they had dough balls on the table. All of the kids (ages 4 – 12) were obsessed with it and entertained by it. I think the most fun they had was when we told them that they could actually eat it and they would taunt each other into doing so. Raw dough at dinner and cardboard boxes at Christmas…it’s the simple things!