Doh Glad to Be a 4-Year-Old's Mama

Yesterday was Jane's fourth birthday. It's basically a free space in NaBloPoMo because obviously I can write on and on about my love for Jane, the speed of time since her birth and her latest antics. I could even fill space with what drives me crazy about parenting. But the annoyance of church stuff, the travel and utter exhaustion from a quick weekend wedding trip led me to hold until today.

Suffice it to say that I love Jane more than I could explain. It's hard to believe four years have passed since she was taken from my body. There are too many antics to list, but she's picking up lots of new phrases from her classmates like "Aw, man!" and "What the heck is this?" (We're trying to nip that last one in the bud, but it's better than "Goddamnit!" which was one she learned from yours truly...)

Last night I put together some class gifts for Jane to give her friends at school. I think cupcakes/sweets are overused and not the best way to celebrate, so we did Play-Doh gifts. I hope the class will still sing Happy Birthday and celebrate Jane without a sweet treat. With 17 kids in the class there will be 16 other cupcakes throughout the year -- plus the Halloween candy and other holiday party treats. Maybe I should have caved and sent something sweet. But it has to be store-bought, which would mean extra processed and really not good for growing preschooler bodies. Hrm. (I already don't love the institutional food they serve the kids and overcharge us for.) A kid whose birthday was last month send home an entire treat bag with candy, cookies, chips and plastic toys IN ADDITION to a cupcake-type treat during their snack. I can't be that extravagant! But I can send in a non-food treat.

Jane's teacher last year gave play-doh with these cute tags for Valentine's Day (I think it was Valentine's), and I thought it would make a good, easy, affordable treat for the class. I found this Play-Doh Super Color, 20-Pack on Amazon for $11 (affiliate link). I didn't realize the tubs were small, but that turned out OK. I panicked for a bit thinking there were more than 20 kids in Jane's class because they've had a couple additions. Of course they've never provided a class list (ugh), so I also bought a full-size pack of 4 from Walmart that we didn't end up needing. I'm sure Jane will enjoy playing with that at home and the three leftover small tubs, and we can even use it with her current doh as an activity at her party this weekend.

Attaching the labels was a bit tricky because I needed Shawn to be able to transport everything to school without wrinkling the labels. I should have made my own at a perfect size for each tub. Normally I would have, but again, the exhaustion from the travel was too much. Poor planning on my part, as I should have done this all last week. But the labels worked fine, and I ended up just taping them to the tops of the cans and then stacking them in a Zulily box with some extra cardboard between them. (Hooray for over-shopping online!) In a perfect world they would have been smaller, printed on sturdier paper (cardstock?) and attached with a darling, perfectly tied ribbon. Obviously I do NOT live in a perfect world...

I'm excited to hear how the day went and if it seems like her friends like the doh. Jane thought it was a good idea, so that's probably all that matters.

Happy birthday to the best 4-year-old fuet-n-toot that I know!

Testing out an "Amazon Native Ad" here for Play Doh stuff (just because I went to get that affiliate link for the doh pack like I bought). Let me know if it bugs you, and I won't do it again. (I'm not sure I will anyway. I've never made any money from Amazon ads ... or any ads actually.)

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