Moments of colour

Today was a cold day, the wind has howled for a few days now; 60km winds burn our faces as the wind chill pulls the temperature ever downward.   It feels like ages since we really got out and moved our bodies in the fresh air, I’m looking forward to a still day that invites us outside to run and walk.

In the meantime my plan is to go crafting crazy in a bid to stay sane.  There will be paint, there will be glitter, there will be mess and, hopefully, there will be smiles and fun.  Today we brought some colour into our lives with some wet on wet water colour painting.  I gave the boys red and deep yellow to play with, colours to remind us of the sun that will return months from now to warm us.

Watching Neirin play with the painting process was lovely.  He seemed very familiar with it and donned his apron ready to begin.  It has been a while since we last painted and I noticed how much more coordinated and confident he was.  In his mind he had obviously mastered the process and was ready for a bit of experimentation.

Instead of giving him paint in jars which are a bit easy to knock over, I put his paint into saucers.  This made it easy to access and lessened the chance of tipping.  It also meant that there was no competition between the boys for control over the paint, each had their own to do with as they pleased.  After a little while Neirin decided to try out the sponges and found them very much to his liking.  He experimented with soaking up as much paint as he could and wringing it out again on the paper.  He dabbed it, swirled it, moving colours together and playing with what the paint could do.

I was amazed at his focus, his determination and clear sense of purpose.  He knew what he wanted to do and how to go about it, but that is very much his character.  Implacable, unstoppable and too darn cute to resist.  I watched his hands, still so little, resting on the table and tried to soak him up like a sponge soaks up paint.

Sometimes being housebound isn’t all bad.