Daily Archives: July 10, 2009

Ooey Gooey Oobleck!

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Yesterday Dan came home early from work, which normally just means, “Hurray, he gets to help me make dinner!” But he happened to come home early at a pretty terrific moment because I was just getting ready to make Oobleck for the very first time. If you’ve never heard of Oobleck (maybe I’m the last person on earth to hear about this stuff, but then again, maybe not) it’s pretty fun stuff! It’s named after the strange material that falls from the sky in Dr. Seuss’ book, Bartholomew and the Oobleck. You can find recipes for oobleck all over the Internet but I’ll save you some google searching / link clicking and just type it out for you here because it is easy peasy.

  1. Mix 1 cup of water with a couple drops of food coloring
  2. Add in 2 cups of corn starch and mix until combined
  3. Add in extra corn starch or food coloring if desired

Dan found that our potato masher (click the link to see what ours looks like, as they are all different) worked the best for mixing this stuff – you want something fairly sturdy that can get in there and make sure all the corn starch gets mixed in. Once it’s all mixed in and colored to your liking, get your hands in there and get ooblecking!

So what is this oobleck stuff? Well, it’s a bit of a mystery mixture – it doesn’t seem to know if it’s a liquid or a solid – you can roll it into a ball in your hands but if you stop applying pressure it will ooze through your fingers. Punch the mixture and it will feel as hard as a brick wall (or so) or touch it gently with your finger and it will be as ooey gooey as it looks.

If your kid gets really messy (as they should) and it splatters on the table or you let it sit on your hands long enough, it will eventually dry to look something like glue. Crush that dry stuff with your finger and it will turn to dust. The dust can be vacuumed or swept up and thrown away – which makes for easy clean up. My husband also found that if you dip a tissue into the mixture (carefully) and remove it, the gooey oobleck will turn dry right away because all the moisture will be taken out of the mix. Science is fun!


  • Want to store your oobleck for another day? Put it into a Ziplock bag and refrigerate. You might want to label it – I’d hate to be the person who tried to eat it – yuck!
  • Word of warning: Do NOT dump your oobleck down the kitchen sink – it can clog the drain!

Aloha Friday: Prioritizing

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It’s time for another Aloha Friday, the day that you take it easy and look forward to the weekend, in Hawaii and blog land anyway. As you should know by now, over at An Island Life, Kailani decided that on Fridays she would take it easy on posting and ask a simple question for you to answer. Nothing that requires a lengthy response.

If you’d like to participate, just post your own question on your blog and leave your link at An Island Life’s blog. Don’t forget to visit the other participants! It’s a great way to make new bloggy friends!

In eleven days I am going to have a baby (planned second c-section for my non-regular readers) – I know, I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this fact in every post I’ve written for the last month or so. At this point, that fact has become all consuming for me. And yet it still seems surreal. We’re going to be a family of four soon. I’m soon going to consider the pitiful excuse for a night’s sleep I’m getting now glorious in comparison. I’ll be reacquainting myself with nursing, changing the diapers of a non-solid food eating kiddo, and second guessing myself on the care of two children instead of just one. I’ll be orchestrating nap times on a continuous basis and recovering from major surgery.

So lately I’ve been busy thinking about all the things I might want to do now to get ready. And my husband has been the opposite in a lot of ways – “We can do that the week the baby is born,” is like his favorite sentence. Things like buying diapers and assembling furniture and installing the infant car seat. I’m not sure who is right. I’m not sure I’m remembering every little thing I should be obsessing over. So my Aloha Friday questions for you are…

  • (If you have kids) What are the essential things I should make sure are done before I go in to have the baby – keeping in mind I’ll be in the hospital for about 4 days?
  • What things can wait?
  • What things should I do now while I have the chance, that don’t directly have to do with the baby?
  • Is it okay to eat leftover lemon bars for lunch today?
  • Any last minute tips on siblings?
  • (If you don’t have kids) If you found out you were having a baby tomorrow, what would you do today?