You win some, you loose some...

So I've been trying a different art project everyday this week with the little guy. It's been great so far!! We're really having a blast together and, as odd as this sounds, it seems the whole week has just been... well... nicer. He's always a great kid. I know, I know, that's what all moms say blah blah blah. But no, really, he's a pretty good kid. But this week, he's even better. Even gooder. Maybe he needed a creative outlet? I dunno. I thought that was reserved for his future repressed adult work life. Who knew. Toddlers need to express themselves. I mean other than crying, laughing, shouting, and general emoting all over the place anytime they feel like it. Okie dokie.

So back to the art stuff. Today I tried something I thought would be the blast of all blasts. I thought this would be so fun, that if there was an entire planet made up of only fun things, this would be the most fun thing on that entire planet of fun things.

Survey says?.... XXX

Nope. Ok, maybe just a not yet. I think it will be super fun - one day. Just. not. today.

The adventure started off pretty well. We went outside (gorgeous day, btw) to have a treasure hunt. We gathered all sorts of cool things - stuff with crazy textures and colors, dried twigs and dead flowers and dirt and tree bark and some soft budding plant things and leaves and all kinds of hoo ha. That lasted well over an hour. It was awesome. Got some good vitamin D and had some fun. Hooray!

After the gatherings, I told the little guy we were gonna go make art. He got super excited. He ran inside yelling, "aaaart!!!" Sweet! I did the ceremonious stripping him down and plopped him in his chair. He was read-ee! Then I went to the counter, cut a big ole rectangle of contact paper, ripped off the backing and put it in front of him. His hands went directly on it and he dug the sticky. Then I put our treasures in front of him and told him to press them on the sticky. Ok. A couple of little bits sort of made their way toward the contact paper. Most of them just went in his fist where they were promptly crumbled to bits and tossed on the floor. So then I tried to get in on the act. I started pressing stuff on the paper to entice him. Meh. More crumblings, more tossing. Then the whole shebang went down. It was a Ye Olde Boredom Toss. The contact paper was no mas and dirty dried bits were all over the breakfast room. Oh yay for me.

Sir was still wanting to make, "aaart!!!" so we pulled out the paints and markers and what not and he went to town while I swept away our afternoon experiment. Ho hum. It's cool though, he had a great time squishing yellow and green and blue in his fingers and rubbing them on paper. We both laughed and enjoyed each other. I hung today's masterpiece on the wall next to the rest of this week's brilliance. We'll try the treasure collage again when he's a bit older. But ya know, it just may not be his medium. Or, maybe it will. :o)

Cheers!