A fear conquered
Remember this post? The one in which Emma was terrified of finger paint? The one in which I snapped photographs of Crayola paint in its natural habitat?
Well, there's no more finger-painting fear around the McMahan household, for BEHOLD:
A brave child with hands covered in finger-paint.
Today while I was playing around in the kitchen (i.e., getting ingredients out for Emma and I to bake zucchini bread together so we could use up a MONSTROUS zucchini brought to us by my father-in-law from his garden), Emma was digging around the pantry. She came out holding her little set of watercolor paints. I set her up on the table with paper, a cup of water, a paintbrush and her watercolors. Before I knew it, she was sticking her fingers into the paints and dotting them all over her paper.
I thought, "Hmmm. Maybe it's time to try the finger-painting again." I snuck back into the pantry and retrieved her special finger-paint paper and finger-paints.
What do you know? The girl took to the finger-painting like she'd never once been scared of it!
She was still pretty fascinated by her dirty hands and every now and then I could see her uneasiness nudging toward the surface, but she kept going and painted a very pretty picture.
She really just does not care for her hands being dirty. This time though, I think the finger-painting was enough of a distraction to keep her interested in the art, instead of the mess all over her hands.
We tried making handprints and fingerprints on the paper. We tried tracing swirly designs in the colors. She only wanted to do one picture -- after the first page, she was done. She spent a good amount of time on that first picture though and I was very much the proud Momma!
I think she had fun, too! I'll bring out the finger-paints a few more times over the course of this week so she can get used to using her hands this way more often.
All in all, this morning was just glorious around the McMahan household. We baked bread, we did a bunch of artwork (coloring books, watercolors AND the formerly-dreaded finger-paints), we read books, we played the piano together ... slow morning around here but no boredom whatsoever! It seems we're always rushing from one place to the next and today it felt good to just stick around the house and play together.
Well, there's no more finger-painting fear around the McMahan household, for BEHOLD:
A brave child with hands covered in finger-paint.
Today while I was playing around in the kitchen (i.e., getting ingredients out for Emma and I to bake zucchini bread together so we could use up a MONSTROUS zucchini brought to us by my father-in-law from his garden), Emma was digging around the pantry. She came out holding her little set of watercolor paints. I set her up on the table with paper, a cup of water, a paintbrush and her watercolors. Before I knew it, she was sticking her fingers into the paints and dotting them all over her paper. 
I thought, "Hmmm. Maybe it's time to try the finger-painting again." I snuck back into the pantry and retrieved her special finger-paint paper and finger-paints.
What do you know? The girl took to the finger-painting like she'd never once been scared of it!
She was still pretty fascinated by her dirty hands and every now and then I could see her uneasiness nudging toward the surface, but she kept going and painted a very pretty picture.
She really just does not care for her hands being dirty. This time though, I think the finger-painting was enough of a distraction to keep her interested in the art, instead of the mess all over her hands.
We tried making handprints and fingerprints on the paper. We tried tracing swirly designs in the colors. She only wanted to do one picture -- after the first page, she was done. She spent a good amount of time on that first picture though and I was very much the proud Momma!
I think she had fun, too! I'll bring out the finger-paints a few more times over the course of this week so she can get used to using her hands this way more often. 
All in all, this morning was just glorious around the McMahan household. We baked bread, we did a bunch of artwork (coloring books, watercolors AND the formerly-dreaded finger-paints), we read books, we played the piano together ... slow morning around here but no boredom whatsoever! It seems we're always rushing from one place to the next and today it felt good to just stick around the house and play together.
Grammy got Emma these finger-paints and paper ... I bet she's excited to see them finally put to great use! Here's to many more finger-painting experiences and hundreds more pieces of artwork to stick to the fridge. :)
Comments
this is great! thanks for sharing - she is (as always) a doll and i love watching her grow up!!
Candace