Two hands for beginners: Rainy day...

So today it rained. Not unusual, but it's probably the third or fourth weekend in a row where we've been stuck inside. Especially challenging when our little 10 month old can crawl faster than the speed of light when he hears the front door opening, hoping to get a glimpse of the outside... or better yet, a chance to play on the grass!

Earlier this week, Lachie had the opportunity to do some fingerpainting at daycare. Marg, the carer, relayed the story on Tuesday afternoon. It took them so long to get the room ready (presumably cover the entire room in plastic!!) and it was all for 5 minutes of fun. Then, it took even longer to get the kids tidied up and the room looking spick and span again. Apparently they all had fun but of course there was a Lachie story. He was the messiest child, the one who ate the paint first (I can imagine him chewing on the edge of the brush - you'd think we never fed him) and the only baby who ate his painting. And there it was, up on the wall, with a big chunk chewed off the bottom, like the Great Australian Bight! I could only laugh - it was just typical of Lachie!

Anyway, back to today... we decided to let Lachie play on the deck (yes, with the dog bowl) and I had the brainwave to make up some finger paint so he could do some artwork, just like at daycare! Surely it couldn't be THAT hard.

WRONG!!!

Okay, so making finger paint is easy (1 part water to 1 part flour - stir and add food colouring). Putting it into 4 pots is easy. Setting up the deck with a drop sheet, paints and paper is easy. After this, everything goes pear shaped.

We sometimes forget we have two children and it was the furry one who caused problems first. Thinking the containers were a smorgasboard of food, Eddie decided he might like to try have a lick of the paints! He managed to find his way past my waving hands to the green paint and had a big gulp - green paint all over the dog! Andrew picked Eddie up which then meant Lachie was free. Lachie wasn't interested in painting - he was outside which meant there was a dog bowl to play with!! Eventually we coaxed Lachie over to the drop sheet but by then the dog was back... I turned my back on Lachie for 2 seconds to shoo the dog away, long enough for him to tip over the blue paint pot (which managed to find the ONE tear in the drop sheet, allowing the paint to seep through to the concrete). Then, while I tried to sort out the blue paint, he found the red paint and tipped that upside down too! He did a bit of a squiggle on the paper while I rescued the yellow paint from suffering the same fate as the others. Then Lachie decided 30 seconds of painting was enough and he wanted to check out that dog bowl again.... and in crawling back, left a rainbow of prints on the concrete.

And that's the end of our first painting session with Lachie! Not sure we'll be in a hurry to do that again. Actually we no longer have a drop sheet as Andrew picked up the entire thing and chucked it all in the bin, painting and all!