New uses for old things

Life is Good: my kids are sure to eat their veggies tomorrow night!

I was just spending time (okay, wasting it) on Pinterest and I came across a pin that made me (almost) shout, "Hallelujah!"

Lately, the big kid has been dawdling at the dinner table. A lot of the time goes by with talking, which is always enjoyable and often funny and so of course, we don't discourage it. But dinner time has also become a test of my creative skills. All of a sudden, this kid who has eaten like a champ, adored veggies and all things nutritious, has discovered that there are kids (at school) who actually don't like nutritious foods and don't eat what's given to him. So some nights, dinner is a chore.

That's why I was so excited to see this pin... It's a Real Simple exercise in 101 new uses for old things: kids edition. The excitement came with #19: rolling dice as a game to get kids to eat that number of bites of their veggies. This is brilliant. My kids will totally fall for this. I mean, enjoy this. We are doing it tomorrow night!

As for the other 100 uses, some were okay...like uses silly bands as wine glass identification, plastic eggs as snack holders, and kid art as wrapping paper (I've been doing this for four years. Very cute.).

Some left me a little "meh" like a baby food jar as an Easter egg dying stand or a used matchbook glued onto a card. If my husband had given me that card before we were married, well, he would be "what's his name" now.

And some of the ideas totally grossed me out. Like using dryer lint for modeling clay. Gross. I am all for recycling and reducing my carbon footprint, but ew. No. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Okay. Truth is, after I saw the dryer lint idea, I stopped looking at the rest of the ideas. But you should! ; )