Playing in the Dirt

Ok, so we didn't really play in the dirt as this title eludes, but we did make dirt cakes.

A few years ago I was working full time, teaching online classes, and trying to be the "perfect" mother to a 1 and 3 year old and was having a little bit of a hard time balancing all of the balls I had flying in the air. A friend of mine at work had already raised 4 kids and was my saving grace and ear to cry to each day. She filled me with lots of wisdom during that time. One day she asked me, "Who told the girls from your generation that you can do it all perfectly? Whoever it was was lying to you! It doesn't matter what you choose, that choice is up to you, but you have to choose one thing and do it well and everything else will fall into place." She was so right! I for one chose my boys because it had always been my dream to be a mom. I even dressed up as a "mom" for career day during Homecoming of my senior year. I think I kind of shocked everyone as I (the salutatorian of my class) walked into school wearing a denim dress and had a sling carrying a Cabbage Patch Kid! (If only I could find a picture from that day!)

Anyways, one day when I was particularly frustrated at work my friend suggested I spend some time just having fun with the kids. That's when she told me about dirt cakes and how she used to have so much fun with her kids making them. That weekend we had our first experience creating dirt cakes and now we have to do it several times a year!

Early in the day I took a small package of cookies (Oreos work well, but we don't have them in Turkey so I just took another pack of cookies) and put them in the freezer. After about 4 hours I put the cookies in the food processor and chopped them up into crumbs to make our "dirt". After picking up the kids from school I had them help me mix up a package of instant chocolate pudding. We also had a package of gummy worms ready to go. I gave the kids each a dish and some spoons and let them have at it. We started with cookies "dirt" on the bottom, some pudding "mud", more dirt and some gummy worms mixed in for fun. We even left some worms crawling out of the dirt at the top for an extra gross factor that boys love!

The kids were crazy excited to get to work eating their dirt cake creations so it was a good incentive to finish all of their dinner that I had prepared a little earlier!