Sick Day | Part 3, or Stamp 'N' Beep

After the cinnamon sugar toast snack and breakfast, the Fun Parade marched into the living room where we broke out the art crap. Here, we pause to note that Julie has chosen the word "crap" rather carefully. In fact, she loves an art project and will admit to our legion readers that in addition to taking more than a few art classes at the rec center and such, she once selected a room in a new house as hers, because it was on the east side of the house and she had this fancy that she might paint in the early morning light. It's true. What is hilarious about this idea (beyond its prima facie hilarity), is that there is no way Julie's mother would have allowed the setting up of an easel or paints or any art trappings on the carpet, by the drapes on the windows. Julie's mom knew what Julie now also knows: art crap is crap and perhaps best belongs outside (which is why we LOVE chalk!!!!!) or in say, your art room, which we are missing at this juncture. But Our Hero was sick, it's frigid outside, Daddy was at work, Clara was at school. . .so we were doin' this art crap up right.

First up, the "stamp 'n' beep." Julie had suggested this to Aunt Kate as a Christmas present. Here, Julie pauses to say that she now knows why Sara once told Graham at a play date with Joe, before Graham had even finished the question, that he and Joe would not be playing stamp 'n' beep. Wow does stamp 'n' beep go e v e r y w h e r e. Wow. Stamp 'n' beep is a set of chunky vehicle stamps (several cars of various stripes, a truck, an airplane, a boat--note several of these "things that go" [yes! a school tie-in!] do not beep) and a red stamp pad proclaiming that it is washable ink. You stamp, and that's all there is to it. It's pretty fab in that we stamped and beeped for nearly an hour, which for a toddler is an amazingly lengthy period of time. Joe was fond of the boat and the plane.

As we have reported, Julie quickly--very quickly--discerned the reason for the rapidity of Sara's response to Graham at an earlier play date, and decreed one stamp 'n' beep rule: when we are playing with stamp 'n' beep, we can only play with stamp 'n' beep--i.e. we cannot mix stamp 'n' beep fun with, say, Play Doh fun. (It perhaps goes without saying--though it was said--that a rule implicit in stamp 'n' beep is we do not touch the couch and chair with our hands. It is, after all, Berenice and Raleigh's job to destroy the sofa and chair, and they are really making good progress on that front.) [Author's note: Other members of the house not present for the inaugural stamp 'n' beep fun should commit these notes to memory.]

Julie is pleased to report that the ink is indeed washable, and wipes up quite nicely from the floor with a baby wipe.