Go ahead and mix those colors!

My kids love playdoh. They will often sit for more than an hour captivated by the delighful squishyness between their little fingers, the rainbow of colors that create such wonderful opportunities for creativity and exploration. I love playdoh because it smells like my childhood. And because it is MUCH easier to clean up than moon sand. Oh I could write an entire post about the villainous qualities of moon sand. But that's not the point. This is:

There was a time when I felt like I needed to hover over my playdoh molding children, making sure they didn't mix the colors, working to keep the brown playdoh under the brown lid, the pink with the pink, and so on. My house is a house of order, right? Socks go in the sock drawer, books go on the book shelf, and the green playdoh goes in the green playdoh container without any little specks of pink mixed in. Right?

Except... it's only playdoh. Who really cares if the colors are mixed? The first time I allowed my children to abandon all sense of playdoh propriety, they made lobsters with yellow and purple swirled claws and sea turtles with marbled blue and green shells. And when they were done, they shoved the playdoh back in to whatever container they could find, with total disregard to lid color. They were thrilled that playdoh creation had suddenly entered a new realm of unfettered freedom.

And for me, it was liberating.

Please don't misinterpret... I'm all about rules and teaching my children to respect their property and the property of others. But why stress over something so insignificant as playdoh? Maybe playdoh color segregation is important at your house... maybe it matters to your kids that they stay separate. I'm not telling you it's wrong to feel that way for you, or your kids. What I'm saying is that I think we can waste a lot of time stressing over stuff that really, really doesn't matter. At my house, I stopped caring about the playdoh.

What can you let go?