When I was your age...

Colon end parenthesis.  I'm about to age myself here....but in high school, those were just punctuation marks that I hardly used. In my 6th grade typing class - yes, typing class...with typewriters...no keyboarding class, not even word processing; where you had to pick up your left arm and crank the register back into place...which, coincidentally, was the same time I worshiped the dual purpose "White Out" because  1. I didn't want to have to type a whole page over because of one little mistake and 2. if I was bored in class I could give myself a french manicure.  Anyway, back to the colon and end parentheis - these were two characters that I didn't have to type very much, but if I did, I almost gave my hand a cramp trying to type the :)

And as you can see, today it's just a happy face.

It blows my mind that my children have no concept of pay phones.  Remember carrying around 10 or 25 cents (weird but calls worth a quarter make me feel younger)...or better yet making a fake collect call home...."I'd like to make a collect call. My first name is Pickmeup. My last name is Taco-Bell. Uh, yeah...my last name is hyphenated, it was an unfortunate marriage."

They have no concept of dials on the televisions - can you imagine the workout channel surfing could actually be if you had to get up all the time to change a channel, turn down the volume, or turn it off.  They have never experience the muscle burn of rolling down/up your own window or don't know what what the big deal was having a real recording of yourself at Missy Cohen's Bat-Mitzvah (just plain 'ole Karaoke now). 

They can't fathom a world without email, or a world with only 5 TV stations, or the restraining limit of only 12-24 exposures on a camera. They don't understand the thrill of Pong, or the value of a googly-eyed, puffy, scratch'n'sniff sticker.

Their world is filled with high speed internet, apps for everything, automatic doors, automatic windows, dishwashers and ice makers.

I love that my 7 years asked me sincerely and earnestly, "Mom, when did your mom give you a cell phone." I said, "My mom didn't give me a phone, I bought my own..." Her face looked hopeful, until I delivered the punchline, "...when I was 23." She didn't find that funny. Her answered was, "I'm not kidding mom, when did you really get your first cell phone?"  And then the joke was on me....I'm old!

But, no matter the era...kids are kids and kids love to do projects or crafts with their parents.  The other night, as a prize for having the whole house clean before I got home from work, we decided to make SILLY SLIME. Kid crafts really are a prize in my house. Not to often do I let them be a part of every step of the project, but this one was fun and easy and even Daddy joined in.

 

RECIPE FOR SILLY SLIME:

one part liquid starch 

two parts white glue

food coloring

I bought liquid starch at Walmart for about $2 or so. I also stirred things up in some leftover kid cups from a restaurant. I made 4 batches of slime using 2 tablespoons of glue and I used up about half the bottle.  I still have a lot of starch leftover, so if anyone who lives by me wants to have some...call me!

So, first the kids mixed the 2 TBS of glue with 1 drop of food coloring.

Then they measured out 1 TBS of liquid starch.  We first did this in cups, but later on, we found a better way. I'll show you at the end.

And then we slowly poured the glue into the starch.  It's best if it's thin strings of glue.  You want the glue to absorb the starch (the starch makes the glue not sticky).

Let it sit for a minimum of 5 minutes.  

Believe it or not, this was the hardest part for the kids.  

They were so anxious.

Then pull out the squishy blob and start working it. 

If it is really sticky and it doesn't start to harden, add a little liquid starch to your slime and work it in.

 
 

Work it till it's not sticky like the blue one below. 

(We forgot to take a picture of the pink when it was ready)

We realized that the more surface area the glue had to the starch, the faster this process went, so we tried the plate method and it worked great.

 

Less waiting was great for the kids.

  

You can also buy glow in the dark solution that you can add to this to make it even more cool. The kids stored their slime in an easter egg and they had fun "making toots." 

My daughter said, "Mom, you are so fun!" I hope she remembers that when she asks for a cell phone and I say, NO!