Hey there 🙂
We were all feeling pretty rubbish today, still fuzzy-headed and runny with the cold. Not only that, it was properly raining too! Only Hubby made it out the door in the end.
Youngest and I slept in until about 8.30am and Eldest until 9am. I had got up briefly for Eldest around 6am to get him a fresh water, and he had said then that he was feeling very tired with a sore throat. Youngest had looked too comfy so we’d left him as he had been coughing in the early hours again. After lots of cuddles, the boys and I went down for breakfast.
Youngest asked for us to do painting, as he often does, and Eldest agreed that this would be a fun activity. I did a bit of straightening of the house while the boys played, handed Eldest’s homework to a mum pal at the door so she could pop it in at the school office (homework had to be taken in if at all possible, I was told when I called the boys in sick!) and then got the kids to clear a path so I could set up the various painty bits n bobs.
They had made a windy and interesting train track while I’d been away!
Eldest put on an old t-shirt of Hubby’s (with Cookie Monster’s eyes!) and Youngest plumped for the old painting shirt the boys have been using for years. I gave them: the cardboard sheets from board games that had housed the press-out pieces, some toilet roll innards, different sized sponge paint brushes, a small plastic bottle and lots of ready-mixed paint in old plastic fruit punnets (so they could get handprints on their pages if they wanted). I also swirled some sparkly gold paint through the colours for extra interest.
They had great fun! I especially love the running commentary that they both always give me, and
how they remark about each other’s work so positively.
A page or so in, they started a study in faces. Eldest used the toilet roll for eyes, Youngest freehanded. 
They both suggested improvements to each other’s and these were enthusiastically taken on board. 
Youngest liked the mixing effect of rolling the cardboard over the paint, so the resultant partial covering of a second face painting, he said, was him having jumped in mud and been splashed all over! (See bottom right painting in the pic with the artwork all out to dry).
Eldest then went on to do another of his faces, this time in orange; which is his favourite colour.
There was a lot of discussion around which colours mix to make which new colour. Youngest was fascinated by purple, and Eldest by pink. We do not often have the white paint asked for, but I had put some out today as a wee experiment, and they seemed pleased that it made things lighter. We suspect that Eldest may be colour blind, so I have come back to these conversations a lot with him over the years. It’s always lovely seeing the wonder in the kids’ faces when the paint changes before their eyes!
They stopped after 5 masterpieces each, as I had run out of drying room by then, and little tummies were rumbling. Apart from me having to blow noses a lot (!), it was a very enjoyable wee session with the boys. I put out the legs of our antique table, and managed to get all but one of the works on that. The boys loved seeing me ‘magically’ extend the table as it is usually folded out of the way of their careening nonsense! It always has a wipe-clean cover on it anyway, so it didn’t come to any painty harm.
For the rest of the afternoon it was a late lunch and various combinations of cuddly people in front of Spiderman, Tin-Tin and Sonic the Hedgehog before Youngest fell asleep around 4pm (which wasn’t a very good idea…). He had probably exhausted himself by somehow figuring out how to unlock ‘Shadow’ on the Sonic game. Eldest was mightily impressed!!
After watching the boys exploring their art skills this morning, I must have had a wee affect on the generator. At least, ‘cupboard’ immediately made me smile:
Cupboard Width Radiation Breeze Rich Terrace Passage Generate Cater
I have a cupboard,
Built especially for me
Taking up most of the width of one wall.
It has special things inside;
Creative radiation
Emanates from it –
A tangible breeze.
I open this cupboard
And instantly feel rich
All this treasure
Mine!
On a terrace of plastic boxes
Rests a happy passage in a card
Telling me ten traits that make me cool.
From this cupboard
I can generate peace;
Follow ideas
Play with dreams.
It can cater precisely to my wandering mind;
Then be closed,
To await me once more…
Eldest would also like to point out that this bottle picture shows how it landed when he flipped it. Apparently this is all kinds of awesome 😉
It has been a good day, despite the cold having me feeling decidedly yucky at points.
We have arts and crafts and writing and each other at home here, what else do we need?!
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May 19th, 2017 at 6:38 am
Very nice – the cupboard a metaphor for the mind, full of dreams.
May 19th, 2017 at 9:55 am
Always 😉 x