Seeking Imperfection

I am a very visual person. I love blogs like Jenn's - that show you pictures of the crafts she makes, and often even step by step pictures. I have not yet mastered this, and so I hesitate to share the activities I do because I don't have pictures to go with them. I am trying to learn that these posts might still be interesting without all the bells and whistles. But I like bells and whistles, so this is hard for me. But here goes nothing.

Thursday was the first day of Chinese New Year. I read "My First Chinese New Year" by Karen Katz to my students and we looked up a little bit of info online. I have run across how to make Chinese lanterns out of construction paper several times online, but have never tried it. So I gave the pattern to one of the nurses, and before I knew it, we had a ton. We preceeded to hang them from the ceiling, and my classroom looks quite festive. I then decided that I really should try and make one myself, instead of just having her do them. So I made one too - I was so proud of myself. I thought Paige might like to make one, since she is always looking for something she can cut with her safety scissors. So last night Paige and I made a couple of them. It was hard for her to only cut where I told her to, but we managed. She seemed to enjoy them. Here's the directions if you want to try too.

Then this morning, inspired by this post by Chrissy at ToddleBits, I decided to try having Paige paint in the tub. I was excited because I believe I have the exact paints mentioned in her post. You know how people always say, "you can make this with things you have around the house?" Well, I never have those things around the house. But this time I actually did! So, I asked Paige if she wanted to paint, and she was very excited...until I took her into the bathroom. First of all, I discovered that I should have dried out the tub before I decided to do this. For whatever reason it was a little damp in there, so the paper got wet, and Paige couldn't seem to figure out why she was sitting in a Pull-Up in a puddle. Ok, then, she wanted to know where her brushes were to paint with, and I told her to use her fingers. Hmm...she did seem to think I was a bit crazy. I don't think we've done much fingerpainting around here, now that I think of it. So I tried to show her how to do it, and she poked one finger around in the paint for a few minutes. Then she decided to stand up and step in the paint for a minute. She was slightly amused by making "footsteps" with red paint on the tub, but that only lasted a minute. She then wanted to get out of the tub and go paint someplace else. How to explain to the 3 year old that the point of the fun (and the way to contain the mess) was to have her paint in the tub?? So, since she really likes taking a bath, she decided she was done painting and just wanted to take her bath. So I turned on the water, forgetting to change the little thing on the faucet that changes it from being a shower to a bath, and cold water rained down on her, freezing her and scaring the crap out of her. Now she's screaming and grabbing my shirt for dear life, covering me in red paint. I pulled her out of the tub, settled her down, and then got her back in the tub for the actual bath. When she was all settled, I showed her the painting she'd made, and she decided she wanted it in the tub. So I figured what the heck, and I gave it to her, even though I told her it'd get all wet. She was amused for a minute when she saw that she could put her hand in the wet, red paint, and then when she put her hand in the bubbles, they kind of looked red too. But once she saw that the bath water was red, she wanted out! She kept telling me how her bath was ruined. So much for that. Guess I can't win them all - and maybe I should invest in a few paint brushes.

Told you I was a crazy mom.