I volunteered to be a “room parent” shortly after my daughter Saoirse started Pre-K. A part of me wanted to prove dads had a creative space in the classroom. Another part of me secretly wanted to rewind the clock and improve my basic art skills in some kind of twisted Billy Madison spinoff. Either way, I got the job without much competition, and scored extra points with the kid upon hearing my new corporate title. “Does that mean you can bring me more snacks in the middle of the day?” No, that’s above my pay grade.
My first assignment was simple. I had to make a batch of homemade play-doh, then allot into separate baggies for each child in the class. I also had to make it pink in celebration of Valentine’s Day. “No sweat,” I said to Saoirse, as I started to do just that.
But let’s back up some 90 years or so. Cursory research (ahem, Wikipedia) tells me Play-doh was originally invented as a wallpaper cleaner in the 1930s and was eventually approved as an educational toy some years later. I vaguely remember playing with it as a kid—not so much the creations I engineered or even the texture in my hands, but rather the smell. Moldy, earthy, a little funky. Kind of like the dank corner of a basement behind the washer. I also remember how quickly Play-doh became useless if you left the cheap plastic lids off those yellow jars. Those memories came flooding back to me as both my daughters jumped on the Play-doh bandwagon of doom entering toddlerhood. My youngest daughter Ella had a particularly annoying obsession with it for a number of months, dragging the necessary accoutrement and accessories behind her like like a drunk, little handyman.
And while she always loved spreading Play-doh throughout the house akin to a Jackson Pollock classic, she rarely (if ever) picked it up. This, of course, resulted in a war-torn living room replete with rainbow shrapnel ready to impale an unknowing sole without warning. And then it was the odd themes and products that would magically appear after birthday parties and grandparent visits. Bodily fluids like slime snot or tightly-coiled emoji poops is enough to bring out the five-year-old in all of us, but it was the Dr. Drill ‘n Fill set that would really flummox me as I would vacuum up his molars and fillings after bedtime. Kids were invited to play dentist as they repaired cavities, customized braces and root-canaled their way to glee on a mustachioed detached head. Classic nightmare fuel. But back to my story…
Weekly Check-In: What toy do you love to hate? Don’t worry—this is a safe, judgment-free space.
Luckily, I was able to find basic recipes to help me on this Pinterest-from-Hell journey. Apparently, there is an underground network of crafty parents that excel in projects just like these, fed by the tears of underachieving dads like myself. Water, flour, salt, vegetable oil, food coloring and something called cream of tartar. [Note: This ingredient is the not the same as tartar sauce, as was made clear to me by a stock boy in the grocery store.] I closely followed the directions and hoped for the best as I was left with something more resembling the (imitation?) chicken rumored to fill our favorite fast food nuggets.
As Saoirse helped me partition the portions for her class, I tried to figure out if she was more disappointed in my efforts or embarrassed to present this to her peers who still were learning the alphabet. Either way, I contemplated trashing the off-pink flubber and telling the teachers I had forgot about my classroom duties. I ultimately decided that any slimy, sticky mess was better than none for a bunch of four-year-olds and held my head high as I handed off the sad sludge the next morning at school. An Academy Award nomination couldn’t hide the teacher’s dissatisfaction, as I mumbled some excuse regarding the type of all-purpose flour I used.
It’s funny how little things can transport you to another time. I was 15 again, botching a science project the morning it was due, explaining away my laziness to the chemistry professor. I was seven, playing with a very obvious Play-doh knockoff, hoping that 20 Pre-K boys and girls would think I was cool. But in reality, I was 37, trying to do something I clearly couldn’t. And as I rolled away from carline at school that morning, I was most definitely uncool as I set my SiriusXM to Pop2K.