The Masked Offenders Attack!

What do you get when you combine a lazy Sunday afternoon and an endless supply of masking tape? Masking Tape Masks, of course! Now that we have church from 9-12 instead of 11-2 we have a lot more afternoon than we're used to. No, I didn't go to choir and no, I din't have all my home teaching done yet; it just seemed like the perfect day to wrap my kids heads in tape.

The whole thing was really Jenny's doing. As the kids were finishing up their lunch, she suggested making some paper mache figures with Nathaniel and Matthew while she and the younger two laid down for a nap. They headed up to bed I looked online at a few paper mache websites and decided on a recipe: 1 part flour to 5 parts water, boil for 3 minutes, add some salt to increase shelf-life and then just a pinch of cinnamon to cover up the bad smell...no problem. As soon as the concoction started boiling I began wondering just how I was going to keep this sticky gooey mess off the carpet in our dining area. I must have gone on wondering too long and not stirred enough because before I knew it the flour had all clumped together and scorched the bottom of the pan. The entire mess quickly found its way to the sink and in my mind I literally thought (and I'm not even a little ashamed to admit this): home-make mache = broke = need to fix = DUCK TAPE!
I knew I didn't have enough duck tape, but I always have plenty of 2" masking tape we use for painting the town houses. So I first convinced Matthew (much more trusting that Nathaniel) to sit in the high chair while I formed two pieces of tin foil over his entire head and then began running strips of tape every which way. After a few minutes, Matthew informed me that he couldn't breathe. No problem. I just took a little painting brush and poked some nostril holes for him. I was going to give him some eye holes too, but after he complained that I'd jabbed the end of the paintbrush a little too far up his second nostril I decided against the idea. Once his entire head was mummy-wrapped, I took the scissors and made two cuts along the back and pulled the mask off. A few eye holes, a mouth, a little paint and walla! It was about then that I looked over at the scissors and noticed a few strands of curly blond hair, which I of course quickly wiped off before Jenny came back downstairs from her nap.

Not to be outdone, Nathaniel sat up in the chair next and earned himself his own mask. I say "earned" because, based upon all of his complaining, the tin foil was pretty pokey and I'm sure it was difficult to breath even with two nostril holes. Matthew also decided it would be fun to start jabbing Nathaniel's bum with a broken toothpick (once I had his entire head wrapped and he was sitting defenseless -of course). I joined in the fun and went silent, making Nathaniel think I had left the room and that Matthew was really going to have his way with him. After a few seconds of pure panic I spoke up, partly becasue I felt bad but mostly to keep Nathaniel from tearing the mask off in a frustrated tissy and thereby rendering it useless.

It's been about 6 hours sinse we finished our project; the masks are still in good working condition and I'm still laughing at the pictures we took. I guess the only thing keeping this afternoon from going down as a complte success is me being able to convince Jenny that the scorched pan in the sink is all hers tonight.