Let Them Paint

Our laundry room is in the basement. The bottles of Crayola paint are in the basement. Our almost 3 year old was “helping” me with laundry then creativity hit him. I get it, when creativity hits you have to move fast because you don’t know how long it’ll stay with you.

As I am loading clothes into the dryer, I ask our almost 3 year old if he wanted to help Mama with the dryer and I received the response due to the current phase we are in…”No”. I continued to load the dryer while keeping a watchful Mama eye on him. He starts to realize he can actually pick up the bottles of paint and decides to give it a try. I see this happening in real time and I ask him to please put the paint back and come help Mama with the laundry and what do you know – “No!”.

It all happened so fast. He picks up the color he wants and bolts up stairs. I yell upstairs to Dad, “Take that from him!” then I hear “Harry, no. Where are you going?”. He runs all the way upstairs and begins to set up his paint station in the bathroom. He makes his way back downstairs because he wants to see why Dad why calling him.

I eventually make my way from the laundry room and tell them it’s time for bath. I head upstairs to start prepping them for bath and I walk into the bathroom and see our almost 3 year old creating his very own masterpiece on and around the bathroom sink. The first instinct was to become upset and start freaking out. But surprisingly (pat on my back) I stayed calm and just called their dad upstairs to come clean up the masterpiece because I knew if I cleaned up, that was then when I would start freaking out and become full of rage because who does that?! A random week day night, painting the bathroom sink when luckily it’s bath time but still, it was a lot; I sat back with the boys and did deep breaths while dad cleaned up.

Messes can always be cleaned up. The kids will only be young once. Kids want what they want when they want it and let not a thing stand in their way. I believe if we took a little bit of that thinking with us into our often times mundane adult lives, we would have a better chance of recognizing what holds us back and learn to knock it down.

Baths were given, laughs were had, and all turned out fine in the end. I learned a valuable lesson that night…let them paint. Let them play, let them cuddle with you past bedtime, let them color, and for crying out loud…let them paint!