Aurora stars in the musical of her everyday life. She sings and sings and sings about
everything. We call it “Aurora
Radio.” So the other day when I
told her we were going to dye rice, she erupted into song about “oh, it
will be so much fun to dye rice” and “dying rice is my favorite” and “I love
dying rice.”
Carefully, she poured ¼ c of vinegar into a small jar.
Meticulously, she squeezed several drops of food coloring
into the vinegar.
Enthusiastically, she poured the 1 c rice into the jars.
The jars were topped with lids and given a good
shake-a-shake.
Then Aurora poured the damp colored rice onto paper bag
lined cookie sheets to dry. It
took them two hours, but Aurora tested them every ten minutes of so, just in
case.
At this point Dad asked, “What are you going to do with dyed
rice?”
Geez, I did not really know. A substitute for glitter in a craft. Pour it into a shaker to make a toy for
Adeline. Practice pouring,
weighting, mixing. There were so many
things we could to do with the dyed rice!
But we did not do any of those things. Aurora asked me to pour it into bowls
and she spent the better part of half and hour stirring the bowls round and
round with her hands. She pat it
into “cookie” and “cakes.” She
pretended it was porridge. She
asked me not to put it away because she wanted to come back to it through out
the evening to do more cooking.
She returned to it often, singing as she played.
