Battle of the Crayons

Every magazine, book and email blast I get about 18 month olds, talks about developing fine motor skills. They talk about how children should practice holding silverware, check! They also talk about scribbling and using crayons. Well that's where we have issues. I thought by 18 months children stopped putting everything in their mouths? Not my children. Don't get me wrong, they scribble with crayons and love it! After about 5 minutes, this happens....

I know that we are supposed to eat all of the colors of the rainbow, but something tells me that this does not include crayons. I tell them "no", and even show them how I color on paper. They seem to get it and go right  back to scribbling their little hearts out until a few minutes later, the crayons go back to the mouth. I hope that with time and practice we can increase the actual time spent drawing on paper, rather than eating the crayons. I would love to experiment with paint and other things, but we need to conquer crayons first!