Kate loves getting messy. And making a mess.

So last week I figured, if I can beat her, I’ll join her.

We started off with watercolor painting. I thought she’d like painting with all the colors. But her favorite part was dipping the paint brush in water and swirling it around. The actual painting didn’t seem to interest her much.

But watercoloring definitely held her attention for more than the usual 2.5 minutes. I was able to crank out a couple emails, write part of a post, and crank out a chapter in Mockingjay while she happily swirled muddy water. So this is an activity is definitely a do-over.

Since the watercolors went over so well, I decided to give in and dye Easter Eggs. I ran out and bought the second to last Paas dye kit in stock at Safeway and hard boiled eggs for the first time in my life.

In true Kate form, she wanted to put her hands all up in the dye. I convinced her to use a spoon for the most part. But when I turned my back for a split second, she completely overturned the yellow dish and dumped yellow dye all over herself, her chair, and soaked through the newspaper onto my table.

Yeah. That yellow dye? It’s not coming off.

But I’ve learned not to get too attached to my stuff around here.

After attempting to remove various unnatural colors from the surfaces of my home, we ended the week with Kate’s first trip to the circus, a treat from my parents (who Kate calls Papa and Susie). She spent the entire show with her mouth gaped open.

We talked about all the things we saw at the circus, the elephants, clowns, the horses. But later when we asked her about the circus and what she saw, she says: “SUSIE!”