Time with J

Since Ellie came home, the little man in my life has had his one-on-one time reduced by at least half. He's being an incredibly good sport about having to play on his own, about having to wait until the baby is done feeding, changing, whatever it happens to be.

Today, this evening rather, we decided to put Ellie in her bouncy seat, with a new crinkly toy, so that he and I could do a project. You remember Rainbow Rice, don't you? Well, J is really into letters these days (ABC's, not pen pal style), so I decided to give a go at dyeing Alphabet pasta.

I didn't take any photos, because I couldn't find the camera in time, and J wanted my full attention. We used one box of pasta, and decided to use six colours (pink, red, yellow, green, blue and lavender). I got out six short glasses, into which I placed six medium Ziploc bags. Into each bag, J measured a quarter cup vinegar, and some food colouring. We didn`t measure that, but if I had to guess, it was between 10-20 drops per colour. Then, he measured a half cup (ish) of the pasta, into each bag, and we zipped them up, and shook them.

I noticed the pasta starting to clump together, but they broke apart easily enough. After letting them sit for maybe five minutes, I poured colour by colour (rinsing out in between) into a colander, then transferred to a cookie sheet. I fit all the pasta onto one sheet, but I probably should have used two.

They`re currently drying in my oven, on its lowest setting, and every few minutes I stir them up. I can already tell, the lavender is a failure, the colour is blah. The others look great. White rice definitely absorbs the colour more readily, and the end result is more vibrant. But, rice isn't as fun as letters are!