Pinterest Unworthy Easter Eggs

You know why I’m blogging about this you guys? It’s so that when you google ‘Dyeing Easter Eggs’, you not only see THESE beautiful specimens of artistic perfection, you also see MY somewhat less beautiful specimens of artistic… uh… effort, and don’t feel discouraged.

After deciding to dye some eggs with the boys today, I realized I don’t actually know HOW to dye eggs since it has been at least 2 decades since I’ve done it. So I googled it, and discovered that all the articles are about fancy ways to dye eggs, I guess for the high achievers among us? I had to change my search term from ‘dyeing easter eggs with kids’ to ‘how to dye easter eggs easy’ because I did not need ’26 New Ways To Dye Easter Eggs’.  I needed ‘Step by Step Egg Dyeing for Morons’.

And this gave me pause. If just googling ‘dyeing easter eggs’ had me thinking, “Oh wow, I guess everyone else knows how to do this and I’m the only one who doesn’t!”, what is this world of social media really doing to our self worth? (Woah. Did I just go deep there?!). But honestly, for a split second there I questioned my abilities as a mother based solely on the fact that a google search provided me with blog links from people who I can only assume are professional egg dyers because seriously,  look at this.

And so I say ENOUGH! I resist! We all do stuff for fun and we’re not good at everything and that is OK! I have written before about my anti-Pinterest approach to life, so in that same spirit, this is what really went down today when I attempted this for the first time.  I give you “Pinterest Unworthy Egg Dyeing.”

I started off with good intentions. I decided to set up properly and lay newspaper out (I often forget that step and clean up is always harder as a result), get everything ready, and THEN call the kids to the table.

“Okay kids, I’m going to put on a show for you while I get the eggs all ready to dye!”

But nope, they were way too excited and didn’t want TV, they wanted to help set up. So I laid newspaper out on the table while the toddler pulled it off. And then I laid out the bowls for colour while the toddler put them on his head and my 4 year old M declared that the ceramic ones were his and his only.

Look at that face!

I’d bought a couple packs of dyeing kits after last Easter when everything was 75% off (I like me a good bargain!) and they came with colour tablets and instructions, so I figured it would be smooth sailing even though I’d abandoned my google search. I filled each bowl about half way with cold water, and then read the instructions which said the water had to be warm, so I had to redo that step. Probably should have read those instructions before I started, eh?

Step two was to drop 3 tablespoons of vinegar in each bowl. Foolishly, I attempted to turn this into a ‘teaching moment’ and tried to get M to count each tablespoon as I poured it in. After randomly yelling FIVE repeatedly, he told me he didn’t want to count and E (who is 2) should do it. I pointedly counted to 3 six times so that I could feel like perhaps some math was getting through to their little brains.

Next I had the kids drop the colour tablets into their bowls. Of course neither of them seemed interested in only putting one colour in each bowl so I had to fish out each tablet and drop it in a different bowl, while our pink took on a decidedly orange colour. They then each put their eggs in the colour(s) of their choosing, (E was really keen on putting all 3 of his eggs in the same too-small bowl) and we hoped for the best. I tried to give some suggestions on things they could do to make the eggs look kind of cool but all they wanted to do was move them from bowl to bowl (with their fingers, no less, as I forgot about the handy egg scooper, so now everyone has green/brown finger tips).

They’re shirtless so I don’t have to bother with smocks.

Once I’d convinced the kids to stop moving the eggs around and let me put them somewhere to dry, we moved on to the last step. These egg kits came with stickers and egg wraps and other things which just did not seem necessary or useful. The dinosaur pack had dinosaur legs, heads and arms, which seemed like a great idea til I read you had to attach them with tape. If I bring out the tape, the children immediately lose interest in whatever they’re doing and just want to put tape all over their faces.

These seem very non egg related. I don’t understand.

So two of our eggs got dinosaur legs, one got a random sticker and the others are just an assortment of colours. We may have managed more decoration but I had to send M away from the table after he was encouraging his younger brother to smash his eggs together, after I had explicitly told said younger brother to do no such thing. (I have a zero-tolerance policy for corrupting a minor, so if you encourage bad behaviour in someone else, you’re done). So that was the end of our egg dyeing adventure.

Oh, except somewhere in there one of the colour bowls spilled, so thank goodness for newspaper. And after I put the bowls of dye in the sink, M wanted to experiment with the coloured water so I got a good twenty uninterrupted minutes to clean up while both kids played in the sink.

Water, bubbles & food colouring = hours of fun + very wet floors.

I’m not ashamed to say our eggs look pretty terrible, because what they look like really doesn’t matter. The kids had fun, and I had fun too, if you exclude all the times I had to tell the toddler to stop licking the dye off the eggs, to stop smashing his eggs together, and that no, he could not crack them on the table.

After that surprisingly exhausting activity, I turned on the TV for the kids and made bird’s nest cookies. It was supposed to be an activity we’d do together tomorrow but frankly, I knew it would be me doing it all while demanding that the boys stop eating the chocolate eggs, so I saved myself the hassle. Also, I really needed the chocolate.

So there you have it. Real life. And real, unfiltered pictures from my definitely not spotless living room. Pinterest, eat your heart out… I’ll be over here eating these cookies.