Pop Art Recipe

Items needed:
-Sun, or rather, warm-enough weather to bring the mess outside
-1 Mug of hot tea (unless certain 3-yr-old's demand, ahem, request a mug--then make it two)

-Brightly colored non-toxic paint (reason for that illustrated later)

-Three sets of paint clothes (in our situation it was two, in which Mommy Bee was wishing she would have been a little more prepared with her attire)

-Brightly colored paint

Painting Instructions:

First set two sides of an easel up for each child, lest your oldest child can't handle not knowing what your youngest child is working on, then one side will do.

Get a paintbrush armored with paint.

Or a hand will do, really.

Make sure the paint is not consumed, this is where the non-toxic will be beneficial. If a child ingests the paint, the wise thing to do would be to take more photos, purely for the high entertainment factor. Calling poison control can wait for later. It's up to you, though.

Make sure subject's attention is fixed on what he or she is painting. Space ships look much better when one is entirely immersed and not paying attention to distractions.

Distractions such as a pesty little brother playing peek-a-boo through the easel.

Ask pesty brother to take a break and just look cute, correction, cool, from the sidelines.

Above all make sure to have subject(s) wear their paint, I mean, game face.

Repeat instructions frequently.

Some people's last painting venture was months ago--entirely too long of a break for these two budding artisans.

Learning Curve

For the books...
Yes! A brush of relief has taken over our household (well, me, Daddy Mock was never really concerned). I've mentioned several times that Kid is no where near showing interest in letters, numbers, writing, etc. I try to teach in his learning windows, but those windows seem to be shut swiftly by other plans, such as baseball, tennis, or pretending to be in prehistoric caves.

We were enjoying the afternoon sun, when out of nowhere, Kid starts writing "C for Carter", "E for Everett" and a "T for Thomas". Get out of town, Brown! He actually listens! And would you believe that he wrote them all without guidance!

Since the window was wide open at the time, I jumped in and was able to sneak some other similar letters. Kid now knows how to write and identify C, E, T, H, D, O, and M.

Highly advanced? No. I know some children his age writing novels (me, exaggerating?), but the relief set in that he does actually have the capability to learn something other than tractor parts and sports lingo.

Again, the window quickly shut later in the day and he turned letter stickers into "eye black--just like the big kids that play baseball in the bright sun" (his words exactly).

Can't win everything.