When the doorbell rang, I was nearly asleep on the carpet, with my three-year-old daughter playing her version of chess next to me. I heaved up and answered the door. The neighbor girls asked for salt, since they were making homemade play dough. As they walked off with a half cup of salt without so much as a thank you, the questions began. "Are they making play dough, Mommy? How do you make play dough? Can we make play dough? Right now?"

I looked down at my daughter, contemplating her request. My one-year-old had me up two hours early this morning, after awakening me several times in the night. I had been exhausted from the lack of sleep when, at lunch, he blew peas all over my face and giggled. At that point, I wanted to call in sick, crawl up to my bed, and pull the covers over my head. But call in sick? Who was I going to call? "Uh, hello, Ghostbusters? I've been slimed."

So I agreed to the play dough, mainly because I was immune to caring about muck today. If two uniformed men had driven up unexpectedly and asked me where I wanted the load of manure dumped, I would have answered, "Oh, in the kitchen. Whatever."

Another plus for making play dough was that my daughter needed stimulation other than solitaire chess. And I needed a few minutes rest. It seemed simple enough: just flour, salt, and water. It only took a few minutes to find a recipe on the web that did not include cream of tartar. (What is cream of tartar anyway? I would not know a tartar if it blew peas in my face, much less know how to cream one.)

When I came into the kitchen, my daughter had already taken out her regular Play Doh and dumped some salt into the blue dough.

"Is this how you make play dough, Mommy?" she asked, as she showed me the can.

I smiled weakly. As I walked to the sink to empty out the blue can, I discovered to what extent the salt had traveled. On any other day, I might have vacuumed. Today, I figured it would keep the manure from sticking to the linoleum.

Our green dough became sticky rather quickly when kneaded (cream of tartar must be the magic ingredient that counteracts this nuisance), so I sat my girl down with a small cup of flour for dipping sticky globs. I pushed aside the earlier stamp and ink pad project which had turned my daughter's hands orange in perpetuity. She was quickly adding green to the stains on her palms as she kneaded the play dough. ("Mommy, what do orange and green make?") I anticipated mess

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