Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Let 'Em Paint!

Confession: I am not a very good painter.

Correction: I am not a very experienced painter.  I'm guessing that if I did it long enough, I could achieve some measure of skill at it; but the fact remains that I have never painted a room of my house...neither have I painted a wall of my house...neither, to the best of my knowledge, have I painted a square inch of my house.  No wonder I'm not a very good painter!  ;-)

True story: to prove how poor my painting skills are, I'll tell you about the time some friends of ours in California were moving into a different house, and we offered to help them get the house ready.  Which meant painting.  The man of the house, named Jeff but not my Jeff, took one look at the painting I was doing, then promptly decided I would be much more helpful if I would kindly drive to Home Depot and buy more paint.  So I did.  End of story.  ;-)

Resolution: to help my kids grow up painting, so that someday when they move out on their own, they'll have some experience--and hopefully, skill--in that area.  Perhaps then, they'll be able to do some painting in their own homes (and maybe come home to mine and paint it for me!)  ;-).  What's more, perhaps they'll be able to be a blessing to their friends who are moving into new homes by actually helping them with the painting--not just with the buying of said paint.  ;-)

Action plan: letting the boys paint our compost box.  You can't do much to mess up that, so it seemed a pretty safe place for them to start honing their skills.  ;-)

The compost box before: a sad, lonely, dirty brown.  Well, OK, maybe I'm personifying it too much when I attach the adjectives "sad" and "lonely" to it, but "dirty brown" certainly applies.  ;-)
 Each of the boys got a side to paint: Tobin had the east.
 He showed off his ambidextrous painting skills.  (Lefties are SO talented.)  ;-)
 David had the south.

 Shav had the west.
 That cute little pudgy tummy of his reminds me that, despite his 5 years of life, a little bit of babyness still clings to him.  I love that.  ;-)
 And Josiah had the north.
It was hot today, necessitating a few breaks for the younger boys; but in general, they all stuck at it, happy to be slathering paint on something.  At the end, they ran out of paint, so the project isn't *quite* finished; but despite that, I'd say that Project Let My Children Paint! was a success.

Mission: accomplished!  :)

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