What I did in my summer holidays (part 2)...

Fun Family Mural/room divider

 

Now that miss is well and truly on the move I need a way to close off the kitchen so she is safe while I'm cooking. We have a large arch the goes from the family room into the kitchen, to get a proper gate would have cost at least $150. I did look on ebay but couldn't find what I wanted  and not wanting to wait forever .  My clever husband got a long piece of mdf and screwed to corner brackets so that is can't be easily pushed over. The other side is pushed against the wall. 

 

But as you can imagine plain mdf is boring. So my boy and I set about brightening it up. We first gave it a couple of coats of under coat which I had some in the shed. As we painted we chatted about what we might paint, my son is not a big one for painting, he gets easily frustrated and gives up but I really wanted his impute on this project so we decided that as there are two sides, we would each have a side that we were the 'leader'. This meant they had the 'vision' and the other one would help. As my son wanted to do super heroes I suggested a city scene in which the super hero's were defending a city from aliens/monster (maybe I got carried away. Because I knew that my son would have a hard time staying focused and we had a large area to cover I suggested we glue torn up news paper down for the back ground. This gave us a great base. I have  found that a blank canvas can be very intimidating so putting stuff down helps get the ball rolling.

 

 

Because I find my boy gets stressed painting as he worries he's not getting it right I feel that its important that I don't take myself to serious. That is, if I make a mistake I talk about how I can fix it or change it and make it part of my idea. I also try to make sure my painting isn't to much better than his. Not to sound up myself but i can paint and draw reasonably well. So while I think its important to show different techniques its also important to make sure it isn't too intimidating. Just as if we were having a running race I would try to keep pace close to him (although he is now getting faster than me)so that he is not totally crushed.

I also found that it was good to get my dear husband to have a little paint after work.  I hope till helps my son see that we all have our own style and can each add something different and valuable.

We all had a great time painting together, missy played on the trampoline and we happily worked together in the evening sun, oh how I love summer.





But sometimes its easier to give advice than take it. When it came to my side I had a mighty 'vison', we would do a tribute to Dr Suss. Paint a background of green rolling hills and blue sky, then cover it in characters from our best loved stories, the cat in the hat, the lorax, grinch and images from my most treasured story 'the places you'll go'. I even planed to include inspiring quotes from 'the places you'll go'.

I stared to get stressed and possessive the moment the blue sky meet the green grass 'get away...make it look good' I said to my son. Then I carefully out lined character for him to paint in as I set work creating my 'master piece'. After a while I noticed that he wasn't trying very hard, just sploged a bit of paint on and was standing there looking abit board.
Husband came outside with us and he encouraged our son to have another go. Husband painted the cat in the cat as I lamenting if my Horton was good enough. It wasn't long after that the boy walked inside telling husband that it wasn't fun anymore. The pangs of guilt when husband told me this, I had become one of those parents who takes it all too seriously and pushes the kid to the side so that it can be done right. And how silly, the whole thing was meant to be fun family time and I had made it into master painting class.

So i went inside and apologised to my son and told him that mummy had been silly and all I really wanted was for him to help me paint. He said he would mess it up, that he's no good at painting. I had to reassure him that all I wanted was him to give it his best and what ever he painted would be beautiful.
He asked if he could paint robots, so yes there are robots now and they are the best robots ever!

So our family mural has a roller coaster ride of parenting highs and lows. I love that there and bits of us in it. It remind me of the good and the bad bits of my mothering but I hope it showed my son that we can make mistakes and then fix things.

 

In case you don't know they story or you can't make out the quotes I included...

 OH! THE PLACES YOU'LL GO!

 

Congratulations! Today is your day. You're off to great places! You're off and away.

 

And will you succeed? Yes! You will indeed! (98 and 3/4 per cent guaranteed).

 

KID, YOU'LL MOVE MOUNTAIN!

Your mountain is waiting.

So...get on your way.

 

 

This is a very condensed version and if you haven't read it I recommend you get your hand on a copy it is a lovely story that really tell you how life is with its ups and downs. Makes me teary when I read it thinking how my kids will grow up and then go have great ups and downs. But I hope my kids know that I will always be here cheering them on and ready to pick them up if they fall.