A Day With A Budding Artist

We've been trying hard lately to make sure we spend some one-on-one time with the boys. They just do so much better when they aren't together all the time and it gives us a chance to appreciate their individuality. It also gives them the much needed chance for some undivided attention. Last week the Bohemian and Mr. Golden Curls drove to Little Rock to spend his gift card on me, get a purple milkshake at The Purple Cow etc etc. and Lil' Spitfire and I stayed home. This was not at all ok with Spitfire until I leaned over and whispered in his ear "We can get out the new paints you got for Christmas." Suddenly going with Pappa was not at all important and they couldn't leave fast enough for his liking, he was ready to paint. Now that's my boy!

I had so much fun with my little man!

I'm amazed at his concentration and the fact that he does more than just play in the mess of it as though he's playing in a sand box. He actually tries different things to see what happens and made the discovery of mixing paint to make new colors. He absolutely loves the huge set of glitter Cars paints he got for Christmas. Well, technically that was probably brother's gift, but what belongs to one belongs to both! He was also very excited to painting on canvas.

When he switched to the water color paint palette I looked over at him cleaning his brush in this jar and had some kind of bizarre clash of worlds-nostalgia-flashback thing happen. This silly jar is one of the things I used all the time when I painted my gigantic, moody, abstract, mixed media pieces in college. It still has my paint ringed around the inside and sludging up the bottom and now here it was on the kitchen table with my child's sweet tiny little hand in it painting on a coloring page.

While he got into flinging paint I decided to test out our new portable DVD player. So I could go ahead and completely brain wash him into being an artist, I went ahead and played my new Living Art Museum Tour DVD. My parents got it for me so I couldn't complain again that they'd never taken me to an art museum. I don't know, seems a shoddy replacement and I'm still waiting for them to send me to the MOMA to make up for all my pain and suffering as a child! Actually Spitfire really liked the DVD and every time the painting changed would look up and ask "what's that one?"

He painted and painted for about an hour and a half before it was lunch time. I had to bribe it all away from him to avoid a fit pitchin', I don't know how long he'd paint if left to his own devices. After lunch we did some serious building with his new bristle blocks and then it was off to naptime when I actually got several hours of 100% peace because his brother wasn't home to roll around yacking and "napping" on the couch.

Best day ever!