So, your kid wants to make homemade slime! This is fantastic news, because there are eight billion super-easy variations on this crafty, DIY fun all over the Internet! Pinterest! Craft blogs! Your clever sister-in-law probably has 10 different variations she could recommend! Here’s how to get started navigating this amazing new world of fun and family togetherness:

  1. Your kid comes home and informs you that she is part of a “Secret Santa (yes, it’s April) Slime Exchange.
  2. The kids vote that day at school and decide that tomorrow is the due date.
  3. Inform your child that this decision sounds like a foolish idea children would come up with without consulting their parents.
  4. Move on, and say, sure, we can make slime tonight! even though you have one hundred thousand things left unchecked on your laughable to-do list.
  5. Be sure to pick a day when you have essentially 45-minutes of free time between school and bedtime, like say, back to back dance classes, instruments that need to be practiced, books that need to be finished before Mother-Daughter book club (also taking place on the following day) and dinner that needs to be prepared.
  6. Consult the Internet while your children are at said dance classes.
  7. Reassure yourself that even though you don’t possess Borax and aren’t entirely sure what the f*ck it is, you are competent to tackle one of these thousand recipes.
  8. Scroll through pictures of multicolored, glow-in-the-dark, glitter, and rainbow slimes, mutter “eff that noise” and find one that calls for two ingredients: corn starch and dish detergent. Score! You own both those things (though not sure why the corn starch, but go with it.)
  9. Tell your kid after class that you found an easy recipe, high five!
  10. Go home and crack open an alcoholic beverage.
  11. Your child informs you she prefers “fluffy slime,” and look! she found an alternate recipe with only three ingredients and you have them all!
  12. You’ve had half your drink so decide sure why not, and help her gather the necessary shaving cream, foaming hand soap, and glue. It’s the last bottle of glue and you’re pretty much out of hand soap, but who cares, right? You’re a supportive, DIY mom, dammit!
  13. You finish your beverage outside with your neighbors and then your child comes to show you her concoction. It is, in fact, an epic fail. A disaster. Not slime-like at all.
  14. Abandon your five minutes of “me time” and head inside to troubleshoot. You then discover that the snapshot of the “easy three-ingredient” fluffy slime recipe was in fact just a snippet of, wait for it, a “13 STEP SLIME RECIPE WITH PHOTOS.” Your child has actually only completed three steps.

    Ruh-roh.

  15. You do not own Borax so cannot complete this recipe. But you’ve wasted three household items and you’re not quitting now, by God!
  16. You do some more handy googling and find that in a pinch, one can use contact lens solution instead of Borax! You’re almost out of that too (time to go to Costco, it seems) but you’re all in!
  17. Dump a bunch of saline solution into the failed slime. It appears to be working, score!
  18. Add some cornstarch just for funsies. You read something about that, too, and your cider is gone, so this seems like a great idea. 
  19. Hmm. That appears to have had a detrimental effect.
  20. Your child is disappointed. She simply canNOT provide this crappy slime to her BFF.
  21. You present the previously decided upon “2-ingredient slime recipe” and try a second batch.
  22. Yes! She likes it!
  23. Wait, too dry. Add more dish soap!
  24. Add more cornstarch!
  25. Make sure there is slimy, gooey shit ALL over the kitchen at this point. On the trash can! On the faucet! On the nice new placemat your mom gave you for Christmas!
  26. Hold up. The slime is on your NEW yoga pants. This will not do.
  27. Tell your kid in a passive aggressive and regrettable moment that if the slime does not come out of your new yoga pants she will have to pay for that elephant shirt at Kohl’s by herself.
  28. Realize you have crushed her spirit and quickly dab out the slime from your pants with a wet paper towel. Yep, it’s all good. Kohl’s is still a go!
  29. Inform her that even though your pants aren’t ruined it’s still her job to clean up the freaking kitchen.
  30. Ruin the grilled cheese you are attempting to make while also assisting with slime.
  31. Mutter about all the things you didn’t get done today.
  32. Coach your child to keep mixing in more corn starch! She’s doing great! She slops that crap everywhere.
  33. Cry.
  34. Hastily microwave some leftover Annie’s (organic!) Mac for your five-year-old. Note that the tomato soup is boiling over on the stove.
  35.  You and your family have officially been slimed, ala “Ghostbusters” and “You Can’t Do That On Television.” That shit is everywhere.
  36. Instruct your child to remove her slime-covered clothing and soak it in the sink. 
  37. Eat your mediocre sandwich while she puts the slime in Tupperware. Tell her she better take both batches, you didn’t waste that soap and contact solution for nothing
  38. Note that your five-year-old somehow got Mac and Cheese all over the floor. Point out this fact to your husband, and watch as he flings some of his own dinner on the floor to be funny. It is kind of funny. Your kitchen is trashed.
  39. Observe your husband cleaning up most of the slime mess your kid was supposed to do. It’s officially an hour and a half later than you usually finish dinner and she still has to practice her instrument and finish her book.
  40. Put kids to bed an hour late.
  41. Pour yourself a whiskey.
  42. Vow to never make homemade slime again.

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