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The Last Day
Jan. 14th, 2019 10:51 pmKiddo time has come to an end.
I made sure to get as much quality time in as I could today - had a ton of art time in the morning, hosed her down twice to get the art off, an hour of park complete with banyan trees (the ultimate climbing tree), and a trip to the deli. I'm gonna see her when she leaves at five in the morning, and that's it except for brief video chats until next Christmas.
She loves art - mixing new colors, smearing things with her hands, expressing emotion through hard scribbles or whimsical dots. When I went out with my grandma and the kiddo to get the glitterglue and paints, I also picked up a pack of watercolor canvas boards, which turned out to be a huge hit - they don't get limp or tear or bleed through like paper no matter how much paint you add. And they're not floppy like paper, so you can just stand em against a wall to display instead of framing or sticking them down. I would definitely recommend them.
There was also a cute box with hearts on it, also courtesy of my grandma. I had trouble convincing her to paint it when she had those canvas boards to play with, so I sneaked some paint on by suggesting she mix nice colors and I would stamp the box on the canvas to pick it up. She eventually got into it and finger painted the rest of it vaguely purple. She packed the art she made today, insisting it was for only her, and not for gifts.
We also divided up the salt dough stuff we made. I made sure she got everything she wanted, from the glitter pizza to surprisingly realistic looking chocolate chip cookies to a blobby alligator I made and didn't want to bake but she insisted. I wish her joy with the alligator, which looks more like a tired iguana. My pride is a little stung by having produced Bad Art in such a durable format, but it makes her happy.
That's it, then. I can take a breath, and go from being sad and tired from the kid being here, to sad and tired because she left.
I made sure to get as much quality time in as I could today - had a ton of art time in the morning, hosed her down twice to get the art off, an hour of park complete with banyan trees (the ultimate climbing tree), and a trip to the deli. I'm gonna see her when she leaves at five in the morning, and that's it except for brief video chats until next Christmas.
She loves art - mixing new colors, smearing things with her hands, expressing emotion through hard scribbles or whimsical dots. When I went out with my grandma and the kiddo to get the glitterglue and paints, I also picked up a pack of watercolor canvas boards, which turned out to be a huge hit - they don't get limp or tear or bleed through like paper no matter how much paint you add. And they're not floppy like paper, so you can just stand em against a wall to display instead of framing or sticking them down. I would definitely recommend them.
There was also a cute box with hearts on it, also courtesy of my grandma. I had trouble convincing her to paint it when she had those canvas boards to play with, so I sneaked some paint on by suggesting she mix nice colors and I would stamp the box on the canvas to pick it up. She eventually got into it and finger painted the rest of it vaguely purple. She packed the art she made today, insisting it was for only her, and not for gifts.
We also divided up the salt dough stuff we made. I made sure she got everything she wanted, from the glitter pizza to surprisingly realistic looking chocolate chip cookies to a blobby alligator I made and didn't want to bake but she insisted. I wish her joy with the alligator, which looks more like a tired iguana. My pride is a little stung by having produced Bad Art in such a durable format, but it makes her happy.
That's it, then. I can take a breath, and go from being sad and tired from the kid being here, to sad and tired because she left.
