FRIDAY FUN: ADVENTURES IN FINGER PAINTING

FRIDAY FUN: ADVENTURES IN FINGER PAINTING

Originally published November 12, 2011

We don’t have the ideal situation here. Ryan and I work overlapping shifts, so we rarely see each other during the week. He works on Saturdays, so we don’t get to do too many fun, spontaneous things on the weekends. I leave right as the boys are getting up during the week, and I get off work at 5pm, so my evenings go like this during the week:

*Pick up children

*Drive home

*Make dinner

*Feed family

*Spend about an hour with children (depending on how fast they eat)

*Get children ready for bed (every 2 days or so this involves a bath)

*Read stories to children

*Put children to bed

I miss my kids during the week. I really do. I would give almost anything to be able to work from home – or not work at all, but I’m realistic here – again. I feel like I don’t even know them sometimes. I miss my husband, too – but I had several years with him before the kiddos started arriving, and we get to see each other in the late evening (like…11:45pm?) so we’re ok.

Anyway, despite our less-than-perfect situation, there are some occasions (and as the boys get older, they get more frequent) when I’m able to sit back, relax, and just watch my kids be the amazing, intelligent, creative, fun little individuals they are. Yesterday was one of those days.

Yesterday, we did some finger-painting. We’ve done this once before, but the previous attempt involved a lot of me telling Logan to stop eating the paint, and trying to get Ethan to do something other than smear all the colors together into a big black blob. As you can see, this time went much differently:

Both boys, merrily painting away. This is going so well!

I convinced Ethan to do something different with the 3 inches of paint on the paper

So pleased with himself, covering up the designs we just made…

Ah, back to normal, we’re taste-testing our work now.

Ethan is following directions, Logan is showing the aftermath of a post-painting meltdown

Ethan = goofball Logan = “I don’ wanna say cheese-uh!”

Watching their different personalities in the creative process was so much fun. I just wish we had the time (and spare funds…damn you, responsible spending!) to do this kind of stuff more often.

And now I must feed the children. I can tell it’s time, because 1.) The oven timer went off and 2.) Logan is apparently starving to the point that he’s trying to eat my toes. Seriously. These kids…