Short-haired hippies

There's a fine line between an adventurous spirit and pure foolishness. It lies somewhere around the place where a mom thinks it's a great idea to load three kids ages 3 and under into the van, drive to the craft store for supplies, then come home and let a 1-, 2-, and 3-year-old tie dye their own t-shirts.

But we survived, and I'm sticking by what I said before. Life's more fun when you're making a mess. Oh, and there's a reason the kids are sitting still in all my photos. When they're on the move, it takes every bit of concentration I have to contain them. In the presence of mayhem, there is an absence of pictures.

First, we soaked our t-shirts on the back deck. (Translation: the kids dunked their shirts repeatedly in water, then slung their water-logged weapons at each other, then splashed until what little water remaining was no more.)

When the water was all gone, Caleb lost interest and wandered into the backyard to look for sticks. Abby and Maddie stuck around for the promise of soon-to-be painting and tried unsuccessfully to twist their shirts the way I showed them. I praised their efforts, then while they carried our supplies into the backyard, I did it for them.

Then the foolishness really kicked in. The girls chose their colors, then I handed Maddie and Abby bottles of permanent fabric dye and gave them instructions to "squeeze the bottle and make circles." I showed them how on my shirt and the one I was making for Caleb, then turned them loose. They took their work pretty seriously, and ended up making some decent circles in blue, pink and yellow. Although the vigor with which they squeezed the bottles left me convinced their shirts were going to come out dyed completely brown, they actually did a great job.

When we were done, I told them we had to wait for our shirts to dry. So they blew on them.

I explained they had to dry for a very long time, and told them we needed to put their shirts in bags and bring them inside. I explained that the dye had to set for 6-8 hours and was rewarded with blank stares all around. So I explained that the shirts would be done after naps, and promised to let them wear their creations just as soon as they were ready. That seemed to do the trick.

And the final results? Some very happy--and very colorful--children. I asked Abby if she liked our new shirts (which we all wore out to dinner).

"This is an awesome tie dyed shirt, Mommy!" she replied. I guess that's a yes.