My Daughter Eats Crayons

Yes, it's true. This sweet, innocent-looking angel--while not eating crayons here--does love to take a chunk out of our Crayolas. Add "crayon munching" to the long list of things that my second offspring does that, to my knowledge, my first offspring has never even considered doing. Sigh.

But, alas! A solution! I was at a local Mornings With Mommy program and I noticed these thick crayon disks. They were really easy for my 17-month-old to grip and color with and, while she had the courtesy not to take a nibble, I think she'd have a hard time chomping a piece off. The disks appeared to be homemade so I asked the program direction and--sure enough--they were lovingly made in her very own kitchen. Bingo!

It couldn't be simpler to do and my son loved making crayon "soup" with me. Here's a quick step-by-step on how to do it:

1. Remove the paper wrappers (I used an XACT-O knife to slit the wrappers and they peeled off very easily). Break the crayons into similar-sized pieces.
   
   
   
2. Add your crayons to the pan. I used two crayons per cup. FYI, from what I've read, it's best to use like-colored crayons otherwise you get a lot of brownish crayons once the colors melt together. You can either use a muffin pan with liners or use a molded silicon tray, which is what I did. NOTE: My crayons did leave a little residue ring on the tray so you may want to use some non-stick cooking spray in advance.
   
   
   
3. Pop the pan/tray into a 200-degree oven until you have little pools of crayon soup. It took about 20 minutes for ours to melt completely. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely before turning them out.
   
   

Now, instead of giving Brynna the snack-look-alike, taste-test-tempting crayon "sticks," she can safely color all over my kitchen table (yeah, that's on the afore-mentioned list, too) with these cute block crayons.

Happy mommy. Happy babies. Happy home. :)