Oh What do You do in the Summer-time?

We paint the deck with water and paintbrushes and pretend Obama's coming to our house so it has to be perfect. What, you say?

Let me explain: I've figured out a perfect formula to get my kids really involved in play.

1. Set them up with something creative, i.e. playdough, paint brushes and water, really just use your imagination.
2. Give them a task. In this case I said, "we've got to get the deck painted in an hour! And it has to be amazing! Obama's coming to visit and I want it to look nice." (I give it some urgency with the timeframe and the Obama. This hooks them every time.) Remember, we're painting with water.
3. I go do something different that I need to get done, i.e. make dinner, or edit photos, and check in on them frequently, adding new details to the game, i.e. "Obama just called. They are going to be 15 minutes early. We've gotta bust this one. You can totally do it. I believe in you, team. You're the best painters around."
4. Satisfied kids. Satisfied mom. I love it when I can get them in this mode. It's actually fun for me, too.

My sister, Susannah, came over to pick up her girls from a playdate while the painting was going on. They BEGGED to stay. She said, "why did I never know about painting the deck with water?" Probably because she didn't live next to my friend Jill in Davis, CA who taught me the beauty of painting bricks on her patio, with 2-year old Leah.

Esther was at it for 1.5 hours. No joke. She can really micro focus when she wants to. Yay, Esther!

Last time we did this, I gave Leah (age 9) 5 different colors of playdough (homemade, so I had a lot more than just the little mini tubs)---and told her and her friend (age 10) that the President of the US just called and he needed 150 tarts and cookies for a banquet. They were sold, and ran with it! Before I knew it, they had assembled lots of play dough pastries, had given the storyline a whole lot more detail (they were 22 year olds living in Paris, making pastries and sleeping in the shop at night so their dough could rise and they could attend to it perfectly. They even swept!) I checked in frequently with Obama updates, including upping the order or slightly tweaking things. We had this friend over the other day and she said, "Hey---we never finished Obama's pastries. Can I come back over so we can play?" It's been a few months since then, so I call that a success!