One of my children: “MOM! Can we paint?”
My bone-tired thought process: Letting them paint by themselves will give me at least 5 minutes of alone time on this couch.
Five minutes later:
“No matter how calmly you try to referee, parenting will eventually produce bizarre behavior, and I’m not talking about the kids. Their behavior is always normal.” —Bill Cosby
Owen wanted a banana this morning. I told him they were still too green to eat. He then spent much of the morning trying to convince me to go to the store to buy—not yellow bananas but—yellow paint.
“Ding-a-ling-ling-ling-ling-ling-ling-ling!
Boo-ba-doo-ba-doop!
Boo-ba-doo-ba-doop!
Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring
Banana phone
Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring
Banana phone
I’ve got this feeling, so appealing,
for us to get together and sing. Sing!” —Raffi
Sophie’s dolls (some of which were my dolls, when I was little) eat their meals in the same highchair my dolls used when I was little. Katy and I shared the highchair, as well as a doll crib. It’s seen some great wear, but still, Sophie was thrilled to receive it (Colleen has the crib).
One boring, cold, rainy Saturday afternoon, while the boys were sleeping and Andy was away, I decided we should paint it. Sophie wanted it to be pink, of course, which was easy because we had leftover pink paint from painting her bedroom walls.
And yes, I opened the paint can with a chisel.
And yes, I stirred it with a broken mini-blind rod, which I found in a pile in the basement.
We moved into our house when the boys were three months old. My days were a hard cycle of pumping, feeding, changing, unpacking. Some parts of the move, such as the basement, were never properly dealt with. As the weeks went by and we needed things from the basement we’d dig around in boxes, leaving messes, never organizing a thing. Andy has never minded it but I’ve always felt agitated, walking around our first floor knowing below me was a mini disaster, well beyond your typical basement disaster. (We made a path so our meter reader wouldn’t break an ankle.)
But putting off cleaning the basement is easy to do. Especially with three small children.
However, the frustration I felt trying to find a paint can opener, stirrer and brush in our throw-it-down-the-steps-and-deal-with-it-later basement put me into a full-blown tizzy.
Operation Clean Basement is underway.
Andy is less-than-thrilled.
Back to the highchair. It’s amazing what a couple coats of paint can do. Sophie loved the project. Sure she missed a bunch of spots, and at times she applied the paint too thickly and too evenly (I did, too). Paint got on the kitchen floor (despite the newspaper) the bottom of her feet (and mine), on my elbow and in her hair. But given that I’m a terrible painter, I loved having her help me. Because no matter how it turned out (and honestly, it turned out surprisingly OK), I could say “Sophie helped me!” when anyone commented on the paint job.
“Life is a great big canvas; throw all the paint you can at it.” —Danny Kaye
Sophie woke up wanting to “teach the boys how to paint.” She’s not the most patient of teachers. She also dislikes mixing colors. Although the pictures depict a rather lovely experience (and for awhile, it was), it did not end well. I suppose, for a more truthful depiction, I should take pictures across the spectrum. Too often, though, I’m solving and resolving at the one of the spectrum, leaving little time for picture-taking—whereas the other end of the spectrum is the stuff you dream motherhood is going to be, with plenty of time for dreamy documenting.
“A child’s attitude toward everything is an artist’s attitude.” —Willa Cather
