If you’re one of those stuffy old adults who constantly worries about things like freshly-mopped kitchen floors and clean carpets, there is a cure for you. It is called springtime. And as any child can tell you, one of spring’s most decadent pleasures awaits you in plentiful supply if you’ll only give yourself permission to experience it again. We’re talking about mud. Sloppy, slurping squishy mud.
Here are the ingredients you need for twenty minutes of superbly relaxing playtime:
1. Dirt
2. Water
Of course, you can supply other tools as well, a few aluminum pie plates or cast-off butter tubs for making mudpies, a stick for scratching your name into the earth, a bucket to sit on while you bury yourself up to the ankles. Hot water from the kitchen sink makes warm mud on a cool day. There’s really no purpose to this activity, and that’s the point. The purpose of playing in the mud is simply to give you a few fun, spontaneous, carefree minutes with a child.
If you live in an area where you don’t have easy access to mud, you can make your own “clean mud” with Dove soap, a roll of toilet paper, and a little water:
Clean Mud
warm water (warm enough to melt soap)
1 bar dove soap
1 roll white toilet paper
Have your child tear up the toilet paper into little bits (the smaller the better). Using a cheese grater, grate the bar of soap into a big bowl. Add the torn up toilet paper, then mix in warm water a little at a time until the mixture is about the consistency of thick whipped topping. The more you play with it, the fluffier it will get.
If discover you love mud, brainstorm together and think of some other fun, playful, muddy activities the two of you might enjoy together:
Paint with mud on an old sheet or piece of cardboard
- Play the game “Stuck in the Mud.” You’ll find rules here.
- Dig down through the topsoil layer to discover what is under the mud.
- Paint a wet sidewalk with a sponge brush dipped in dirt, and hose it off when you finish.
- Invest in some oven-fired or self-hardening clay and try your hand at some beginning pottery.
- Experiment with the art of Japanese dorodango, or balls of mud that are hardened and shaped into exquisite polished spheres http://www.dorodango.com/. This project could take a couple of hours.
If you have older children who will only look at you strangely if you suggest playing in the mud, suggest finding a good spot for a neighborhood mud volleyball game (you’ll need the landowner’s permission and a close water source). Or, sit on the porch and soak your feet in a tub of mud, then clean up and give your daughter a pedicure. You can even try designing a T-shirt with senufo mud painting technique used by the Senufo people of West Africa http://pbskids.org/zoom/activities/do/senufomudpainting.html
