My Little Artist

 His initial forays into the art world were always met with resistance, but as he grows, Peter's getting more and more interested.  He's been coloring more with crayons and markers and today I decided to try painting again.  We had been watching the little squirrels in the yard competing with the birds for our seeds so I decided to stay right there and paint on the window.  I covered his clothes with a paint shirt from the closet, tied it at the back, and we were ready to roll.  We also did a little rainbow craft and made the whole thing a mini color lesson.  He loved smearing the glue and sticking on the cotton balls.  He loved watching the crepe paper blow in the breeze of the window.  He also really seemed to enjoy painting with the various different brushes (often preferring the wooden end of the brush to the bristle end - alas, toddlers.)  His favorite thing though was the little spiky ball he could dunk in the paint and bang against the window leaving bunches of fun little colored dots.  As always, I left the supplies out for a while after we were done in case he decided to return to it later and he did return twice more later in the day and paint some more.  It was fun to see how he tried different strokes and color mixtures.  Some things never change, though - when he accidentally got paint on his fingers, he immediately stopped and insisted we wipe it off before continuing.  I tried to assure him it was no big deal and we'd wash when we were all done, but clearly finger painting is still a ways in the future.