Welcome Baby: Book Review: I Love You, Stinky Face

In this fun book, a curious little boy tries to find the limits of his mother's unconditional love through a relentless list of questions. Author Lisa McCourt and illustrator Cyd Moore weave a beautiful tale of the love and affection of a mother for her child. The imaginative little boy turns himself into a skunk, a swamp monster, a crocodile, an alien from Mars, and much more before he is satisfied with the fact that matter how smelly or ferocious or slimy he might ever be, he will always be loved no matter what.

Picture

A great activity to go along with this book is to make "stinky face eggheads" -- faces only a mother could love. To do this activity, you will need:

a glue gun, different shapes of stickers, rubber bands
food coloring, white vinegar, measuring cups
small plastic containers for dying
tongs
hard-boiled eggs
googly eyes, scraps of paper and fabric, pipe cleaners, pom poms, ribbon, etc.

Directions:

Hard-boil your eggs!

Let the eggs cool. You can put them in cold water to speed the process, but sometimes this will crack the egg. After the eggs have cooled, heat up the glue gun.

Use the glue, stickers, rubberbands, etc. to make different designs on your eggs.

If your child wants to, give them a template on a piece of paper for him to design the egg he wants you to make, since you don't want a small child near a glue gun. (This activity requires parental supervision... obviously.)

Let the glue dry (if you are using glue) and make your dye. You can experiment with different combinations and quantities of food coloring to achieve your desired color. Soak the eggs in the dye for as long as you want (the longer it soaks, the more saturated the color will be).

Submerge the egg and leave it alone... or don't. Have fun with it!

If you decide to use the glue, wait for it to cool completely and for the dye to dry at least a little, then peel off the glue.

Sometimes, the big globs of glue will pull bits of shell off with them too, so it's probably a good idea not to eat these eggs. But they will definitely look cool!

Repeat this process with the rubber bands, stickers, and whatever else you decide to use. The sky is the limit, so you can use whatever materials you can think of!

Let all of the dye dry completely and pull of any stickers, rubber bands, or glue that haven't already come off. Then, start decorating your "stinky faces"!!! You can use anything that you have around the house taht seems fun -- googly eyes, ribbon, random pieces of plastic or paper or fabric, pipe cleaners, pom poms, or anything else!