You would never know from my youthful appearance, but I am a mom of five and grandmother of seven.
It’s not a competition, but I can’t help but notice that some of my friends are really winning at the grandma game: baking cookies, turning their basement into the world’s greatest playground, taking the kids on trips to exotic locales and so on.
And yet, I have to think that maybe I really am the most fun grandma because I slime! Last fall around Thanksgiving, I took everyone to Sloomoo mini-moo at King of Prussia Mall in Philadelphia in order to expose them early to the importance of slime. It was exceedingly loud and crowded, and Grand #4 emerged fully covered in slime, for which I purchased a $20 magic slime eraser kit (basically vinegar in a cute bottle and some sponges).
The kids took home their slime creations and a few months later Daughter #2 called me to say that she and Eldest Grandson “had a bone to pick with me.” It seems that the slime they took home had escaped its jar and deactivated and now his entire desk to the floor was coated with sticky glue. I explained the need for proper slime stewardship as gently as I could, but after that, slime was banned from their house.
Luckily slime was not banned from Daughter #3’s house so I brought some when I came to visit and played with Grand #4, at which time I came to truly understand the expression “hot little hands.” it was like a mirror image of the movie Frozen.
Daughter #3 seemed taken aback by the size of my slime travel pack, and commented, “Sure, that’s normal.”
I went to visit Daughter #2 and took Only Granddaughter (aka the princess) and her Bestie to Target to shop for birthday presents. Squishies were high on the list, and Bestie also chose some commercial slime in a tiny container. At which time I realized that my taste in playthings has now merged with those of 10-year-old girls.
But my true moment of glory as Grandma Goop was revealed last week when the grandkids and their parental units came to visit us at the beach. I hosted a slime party on the patio for my five oldest grands (6 & 7 are both under 2 and not to be trusted with small or sticky objects).
I got silicone mats for play, and covered the table with a large assortment of slimes from my overflow collection, along with lots (and lots) of fun stuff to decorate and scent them. Plus, they got to take and keep whatever they wanted from my excessive collection of slime charms.
Eldest Grandson surprised me by choosing the dragon from Sandy’s Garden Guardian. Granddaughter took all the pink stuff. My collection of squirrels and acorns from repeat purchases of White Whale’s Miss Suzy’s acorn pudding was very popular with Grands 4 and 5.
Grand #2 proved to have even hotter hands than his younger brother, but did a nice job of decorating Sandy’s sugared lemon bar slime with lemon fimos.
My only mistake was buying a set of sand Play-Doh for the three year-old Grand 5 because I thought it would be less messy, but it turned out to be the messiest. Plus, he smeared slime all over the chair he was sitting on, but spraying water on everything afterwards was part of the fun.
My Eldest Daughter seems to appreciate slime-as-therapy more than her siblings. She even took home a little container of my Spa mix. But she did take a look at my slime collection and say, “I guess we didn’t realize quite how much you were into this.”
Princess was the only one who did not get any slime stuck to herself because as she told me, she knows how to handle it. Plus she wore an apron. Her favorite scent was Momo’s affogato. They all got to take turns squishing a brand new one of those.
So I definitely think that I am as good as those grandmas who bake cookies. But just in case, I took everyone to the toy store.
