lessons in rice

These photos are from back in February. I have a feeling it was the first morning I got an inkling that my next few months at home with Sunday weren't going to be all plain sailing ...

It started off alright, a little girl very busy doing funny little girl things.

See that tray of coloured rice? I left it there naively thinking it would extend her solo play time, while I got some work done.
2 colours rice and some pouring and scooping toys. What's not to love right?

It was all going swimmingly until I mixed the rice. And something in her then-nearly-3-year-old make-up VIOLENTLY OBJECTED to such an outright parental disrespect for the natural order of dyed rice segregation.
In short, all hell broke loose (no photos supplied).

In those early days of tantrum hell my first response was to IMMEDIATELY FIX THE PROBLEM and so ...

... we quickly set about dying new batches of rice.
(See that sweet clear-eyed face, showing no trace of recent demonic fury and rage.)

Each colour carefully and prettily segregated as they dried in the sunshine. And then very carefully and prettily separately decanted into a plastic muffin tray from the recycling.

Whereupon what was the first thing she did? MIXED THE COLOURS OF COURSE.

In retrospect there were a lot of lessons learnt that day, about the deep complexities of the 3 year old mind. About trying to apply adult logic to a very non-adult small person.
And in the months since we've learnt how very many games, crafts and fun times can be had with a simple batch of coloured rice.

For all of us.

We've also learnt how spilled uncooked rice will stick to your toes and spread throughout your house in ways we could never have imagined.
This batch of rice served us well, but finally, today, I swept up and chucked the last of it. And like the tantrums which held us all hostage these past months (but have started to abate) I hope not to see any more dyed rice around here for a long, long time.