Pulp Non-Fiction

When it comes to kids, you just can't make this stuff up.

I had the bright idea of giving my daughter, who gets bored very quickly, a jar of ideas.  In the jar were slips of paper.  Each paper had an idea of an activity that she could do.  One idea was to make a boat and see if it floats.  Sounds like a great idea, right?

So Daughter got a shoe box and cut the lid off.  She poked a stick into the lid and taped a piece of paper to the stick.  So, we have a boat (box lid), with a stick mast and a paper sail.  She proceeded to fill the bathtub with water.  The younger two kids decided to join in on the fun.  They all changed into swim suits and hopped into the bath.

The boat was set afloat and they all had a wonderful time splashing, playing and sailing their boat.  I didn't give it much thought.  I was happy they were in the tub getting clean.  Well, when I finally went to check on them, the boat was gone.  It didn't sink.... It wasn't tossed out of the tub.... It had disintegrated.  I got the kids out of the tub and sent to their rooms to get dressed.

What to do?  I didn't want to pull the plug on the tub.  I didn't want all that box pulp going down the drain.  So, to the kitchen I went and got the pasta strainer.  Using the strainer, I scooped up pulp out of the tub and emptied it into a bucket. 

After I was done scooping all the pulp out, I thought about giving the bucket of pulp to the kids and let them try and make their own paper.  Then I decided I had cleaned up the pulp mess once, I wasn't going to do it again.

So, Hubby, the great dad that he is, gave our daughter a scrap piece of wood.  He drilled a hole in the top for her stick mast and paper sail.  Last I saw, the new boat was happily floating in the bathroom sink.