Eli's Face Paint

Lest you are mistakenly thinking that my son Nate, of whose escapades have been well chronicled this year, is alone in the mischief making in our household-I am here to tell you he is not alone!

Lately what I would have figured the least likely of culprits has stepped up to make some mighty interesting debacles. Little Eli, whom I always think of as my darling baby boy, has set off on his own toddling path of destruction as of late. Most can probably be contributed to the boundless curiosity of a toddler finding all things new, interesting and in need of immediate and thorough investigation.

I do my best to make sure his environment is safe and secure. But in not trying to be a "helicopter parent", which by the way is one of my favorite terms this decade, and not hover over my children's every move-sometimes interesting things happen. Such is true when I was making lunch in the kitchen a few days ago. In the dining room Eli and Nathan were playing and doing their own thing. I could here them each talking to themselves.

I brought the plates into the next room, only to be met with a huge grin from Eli. But not your normal grin. A watercolor paint smeared face. Apparently Daddy D and Seth had not placed the watercolor strips high enough up on the piano to dry. Eli's tiny little fingers had gotten them and turned them into his own sticky finger paints.

As they are non-toxic and were just smeared all over and not ingested, I was not in a panic. But I wanted to take a picture of it. First he was very elusive with his million tiny steps a minute maneuvers, ducking deftly around corners...

By the time I caught him he was not amused with my pursuit...

And you would have think I had washed off Monet's masterpiece the way he wailed at my attempts to clean him up a bit...

In the end it only took a few minutes to clean up and gave us some memorable pictures for the scrapbook. Although a few days later I found a watercolor hand print on the dining room blinds that made me grin, and I have yet to wipe it away in all it's tiny smeared glory.