I don't want to finger paint: Part Two

Today we tried out another finger painting alternative (for new readers you can check out part one of this series here). For this activity I coloured some water with food dye and then froze it in ice cube trays with half a paddle pop stick poking out of each. The paddle pop stick then acts like a little handle so that you can paint with the melting ice. I really should have used more food dye because the colours were pretty washed out. I used about 3 drops per ice cube but I think I needed to at least double that to get good results. Minty got bored with this relatively quickly because the ice was taking too long to melt, so if you want to try this I'd really recommend doing it on a hot day, or take the cubes out of the freezer a little while before you start.

In other news I finally ended up getting a leash for Minty. I know the issue of children on leashes can be a little polarising but frankly it became the only option for keeping her safe. For the first time in months we were able to calmly walk to the park without strapping her into the pram. She can actually burn off some energy and has the chance to explore the environment while we're walking. I really don't like having to strap her into a pram all the time because it really limits her experience and feels like such a wasted opportunity for exercise and fun. So far she has been fooled by my over enthusiasm about how exciting her new harness is. This afternoon she even brought it over to me and asked me to 'put harness on' so we could go out again! In case you were wondering, I do take the leash off when we reach our destination so she can run free, climb the trees and generally run amuck.