Painting

I have to admit, I've never let me kids paint...until today. The very thought of letting three little ones have at it with paint has always set me on edge. I've seen way too many people's houses that have been beautified with their children's creativity that I've kept paints far away from my kids. I've already had to scrub marker, crayon and colored pencil off the wall. Why make it horrific by adding paint into the mix? But I've been thinking recently of how strict I am in what I will and won't let me kids do. My mom wasn't that way, why am I? Really what's the worst that can happen? Paint gets everywhere. So? Really what matters most? My children or my things? That's not to say that I don't want to keep things nice, but really my happiness revolves around my children, not my material possessions. If it revolved around those, what on earth would possess me to have kids? So today I forced myself to get over my fears and let them paint. I got a Dollar Store vinyl tablecloth, a thing of CrazyArt washable paints some paintbrushes, paper, I stripped my kids down and let them have at it. I think my favorite part of it was this:

The paint looked like this when we were done. Can you even tell what colors they are supposed to be? I sure couldn't as I was replacing the lids. But you know what I realized? The kids don't care. They loved painting--the paper and themselves--and everything else is just water under the bridge. So moral of this story for me is: sometimes I need to face my fears and let my kids do things that scare me to death because I may find, like I did today, that it's not as bad as I think it's going to be AND the joy my kids get from doing it offsets most of the frustration it causes.

Sheer joy, I tell you