Author: Mikey Arce

Lately, we’ve been having a lot fun making shiny purple crabs out of play-doh. We also make frogs, snails, and the occasional poop because all kids love making play-doh poop and so do I. My daughter also invented what she calls a “Cinnamon Twist Hair” – which is when you put a cinnamon bun on an animals head as a haircut.

Pure genius.

Something I realized is that I’m constantly afraid of the play-doh sitting out too long and getting ruined, even though it’s only a $1 can (bottle? cylinder?). I have some sort of play-doh anxiety. While we’re playing I’m constantly checking for how it feels, alerting of hardening conditions, and recovering lost crumbs from the ground quickly.

As a kid, play-doh was this sort of “holy grail” of American Toys™. It wasn’t something you could find in a store, so we only got it when we travelled to the U.S. or if someone brought us some back as a gift. It was pretty rare stuff. We’d have 1 or 2 cans of play-doh that we’d have to make us last for 5+ years. I was so afraid of loosing a crumb or making it go stale that I just ended up never opening it.

One of my favourite gifts I received as a kid was from my mom just after I had gone through Tonsil surgery.

Post-It Notes.

When you’re a kid and you’ve never seen anything like a Post-It Note, it’s really magical. Colourful, square, sticky, paper?? I kept the Post-It’s for 14 years in a box of special things (until my dad tossed them, probably thinking they were garbage).

Sometimes I do have these strange bonds with mundane things like Post-Its and Play-Doh, and it can be hard to explain and it’s even hard to understand why those things still affect me much later in life. As odd as it seems, I like to think that it’s a reminder for me to keep learning to appreciate things that might seem minuscule to me but that in fact can be full of wonder and excitement.

Thanks for the Post-Its, Mom!