Van Gogh

Well, probably not quite Van Gogh. I don't want Zane to cut off his own ear. Or end up in a mental hospital. How about some awesome artist that wasn't crazy?

Our 4th of July weekend was pretty low key. Zane had a fever Saturday and Sunday and was generally miserable all weekend. We did go to the bbq that our apartment complex put together. They did a raffle and I won a candle, Zane won a beach ball, and Clay won a golf towel. I think they were expecting more people since pretty much everyone there ended up with a prize.  After that, we put Zane down to sleep, Clay worked on homework, and I walked to the back of our complex and watched the fireworks at the Peoria Sports Complex. The spring training facility is about a mile away from our apartment, so I had a pretty good view. I wish that Zane could have stayed up to watch the fireworks, but there was no way he would have made it based on how miserable he had been all weekend.

Tuesday, I ended up getting whatever Zane had except I got it much worse. I got sick once at work at the yoga studio, then drove home in the dust storm. It didn't seem too bad when I was driving in it. It just seemed like an eerily misty night, except that the mist was dirt in the air. When I watched the footage of the storm the next day, I was surprised at how bad it actually was. That night, I was up sick every hour on the hour until 3:30 and then woke up with Zane at 6ish. Not a fun night. Clay stayed home from school to take care of the little man while I writhed in pain on the couch, and caught up on the sleep I had missed the night before. I'm glad that I got the brunt of whatever bug made its way into our house though. Better me than Zane. Or Clay, but he rarely gets sick.

To make up for being such a bum yesterday, (and because I feel a hundred times better, hallelujah) I pulled out some tempera paints today, taped some butcher paper to the table, and let Zane go to town.

Zane likes to play with dry sponge brushes, so he didn't know what was in store for him when I handed him the paintbrush. He brushed the paper dry for a while until I handed him the paints.

Once he worked out that putting the paintbrush in the paint, then on the paper would make a design, he got so excited!

I gave him three different colors to work with today. I think one of his favorite parts was dipping his paintbrush in the different cups of paint and seeing how much paint he could get on the brush at once.

After he had painted for a little bit, Zane handed me the paintbrush. I painted his name, then a moon. For some reason, Zane LOVES the moon. He will point it out on the TV, outside, and in books. And he yells, "MOOOOOO MOOOOO MOOOOOO" every time, until we acknowledge the fact that he found the moon.

Then he took the paintbrush back and spread the paint around and around.

Until he discovered the smacking the paper with the brush would make fun blobs of paint and a cool sound.

The artist is so proud of his masterpiece. When Clay came home from school, and we showed him the painting, Zane went in search of his paintbrush. When he found it, he showed Clay how he painted his picture. He was so excited about it. We will keep happily doing art projects, as long as those cute little ears stay intact.