Oh Mai Family: Giving New Meaning to "Finger Painting"

My kids love art. Unfortunately I haven't done as much art play with Malia as I did with Kael simply because... well, there's two of them and that's a lot of mess for one parent to handle. Plus I like to do art stuff outside and it just hasn't been warm enough to do that.

A couple of weeks ago Truong decided it was a good idea to break out one of Kael's birthday presents. Unfortunately he did so without consulting me and got Kael totally excited about it so I'd feel like the Wicked Witch if I said no. It was a Dinosaur painting kit. With paint. Real paint.

So we set up the art table, go out the paints and brushes and secured a clear perimeter around the kids. It started off great. It was the first time Malia ever got to paint and she was fascinated with the stuff. I felt bad that I hadn't introduced it to her before. Kael did a great job. He usually mixes the colors so it ends up being some kind of muddy-pooh brown. This time he kept the colors separate and even added his own touch. Then somewhere, somehow, things went awry.

We're good here. His T-Rex is a good solid yellow. Paint is supposed to be where it's supposed to be.

Malia looking for pointers from her brother.

She decides that she needs a little more red.

Trying to figure out where to put the red....

And makes herself a redhead.

Kael's finished T-Rex. Notice his cool striping...

Malia is still working on hers. She doesn't like the feel of paint on her fingers and it's frustrating her that there's paint on the tail, where she likes to hold and move the triceratops.

Kael decided that he needed some finishing touches on the T-Rex. Notice he got some paint on his fingers.

Now I'm wondering it it was an accident at all. The start of the end began with either this picture or the one above.

Can you see Dad encouraging him? I don't think Truong's thought about how we're going to (1) get Kael upstairs into the shower without touching any walls and (2) how to get the T-shirt off.