Blame it on the Snow

Today is the third day that school has been cancelled as a result of Atlanta's epic snow disaster, and, unofficially, that's the day when you go to Michael's and throw money at anything that you think will entertain the children. Example 1: I broke down and bought a Rainbow Loom.

The children had been using our next-door neighbor's loom (and teeny-tiny rubber bands) and have been begging for a loom of their own. The Boy and I hit CVS yesterday because I heard they had them there, but they turned out to only stock a generic knock-off called "Just The Primary Colors Loom" or something.  Luckily, the Boy is brand-conscious enough that he didn't urge me to buy the thing, which looked like it would snap under the force of those teeny-tiny rubber bands.

So, we put off the purchase until today, when the roads were free of ice and we could make it to Michael's without a problem. When we got the loom home, the kids were like, "Mom, do you want to learn how to make one?" I hate to be a spoil-sport, but honestly, no. I went to camp and went through a stage where I made all sorts of bracelets with embroidery yarn, but I was 11 years old then and now I just have other things I'd rather do than watch videos on YouTube on how to make orthodontic rubber bands into flowers...or Joseph and Mary:

or E.T.:

or superhero necklaces:

We also got some Model Magic, because I don't even know what day it is anymore and I'm pretty sure that I'm living "The Long Winter," my favorite Laura Ingalls Wilder book. I mean, how different is weaving rubber bands from braiding hay to burn because you're out of firewood? As soon as we got home with our things, I made the children take the Loom and accouterments upstairs because I was afraid that Dog would ingest the rubber bands and even if it wouldn't hurt her, that just smacks of negligent pet ownership.

The children made some wonderful bracelets. The Boy's is entirely yellow because he's colorblind and can't match colors. The Girl made me a bracelet:

Of course, she made it on two pencils, which means we totally could have just bought a bag of rubber bands for $3.00 instead of an actual loom for $14.99, but whatever.

While the big kids worked on the bracelets upstairs, the Baby and I worked on Model Magic downstairs. At some point, the Boy and the Baby decided to go next door to show our neighbor their Model Magic and Rainbow Loom creations. The Baby had made a taco out of Model Magic and was very proud. I'm not clear what happened next, but I think one of them decided to leave the Model Magic in our backyard and pick it up on the way home. I, knowing nothing of the Model Magic taco in our backyard, let Dog out in the yard to run around. Well, you can guess what happened next.
Dog snuck in with the Model Magic in her mouth and proceeded to chew up and leave pieces of Model Magic all over the family room.

By the time the Girl noticed what had happened, Dog also had Model Magic matted into her paws and her fur. I frantically raced around the room picking up pieces of Model Magic and screaming, "check the package!! Is this nontoxic??" Dog stared at me and continued to calmly chew on a wad of Model Magic like a cow chewing its cud.

The multicolored Model Magic is what we salvaged from
Dog. You can actually see some dog fur sticking out.

After determining that Model Magic is, in fact, nontoxic (thank you Crayola), we were forced to bathe Dog to get the stuff out of her fur. I don't know if it was the Model Magic, Dog, the shampoo, or what, but the smell emanating from the bath was so vile that the Girl gagged and since she's prone to puking, I was assisted thereafter by the Baby, who is, you'll remember, five.

None the worse for the wear.

The silver lining to this whole things is that we'll have no trouble identifying Dog's poop in the yard for the next few days. It should show up nicely as it will be red, yellow, and blue. And there's a lesson in here somewhere. Like, it's always the thing that you don't worry about that shows up to bite you in the ass. I'll bet that Ben Franklin has a quip along those lines, although it's probably more colorful and includes a chicken or a fish.

I think it's fair to blame this whole debacle on the snow, don't you?

*I am writing this under extreme time pressure, so I don't have time to link up the Rainbow Loom pictures. Check out Pinterest to get more ideas of the insane things you can make with small rubber bands and lots of time on your hands.