My Own Picasso

I have a funny, fun, awesome story to share about my little one today.

So, yesterday we made a trip to Wal-mart. I was over in the craft section grabbing up their clearanced stuff since they're rearranging the store right now and putting just about anything on clearance in order to make more room. I found a lot of good things: $1 rolls of ribbon, $6 Glue Gun, $3 bolts of cloth for my next project... Lots of good stuff. I was really happy with it.

Anyway, while I was in the neighborhood I noticed the acrylics were only $1 each as well. So I got to thinking... I wanted to paint designs on the fan-blades of Rune's new ceiling fan. I'd bought spray paints and was going to do a swirled pattern of pink, purple and blue. But when I sat down to draw the pattern out on the blades, I got a little carried away/creative/excited... and I ended up with a more detailed set of images.
I liked them a lot... but spray paints wouldn't do. So I looked at the acrylics and decided to grab a pack of brushes and the colors I needed.
Rune, in the cart, picked up each color as I tossed it in and said "What's this??"
So I explained "Those are paints."
"Paints? WHY?"
"Because I'm going to paint your fan."
"You're gonna paint my fan? Oooh..."
She played happily in the cart of course with ribbons and paints and such to arrange.

This morning I woke up to a hilarious ordeal. The kind that really challenges your parenting instincts.
I woke up and Rohan had gotten up with Rune a bit earlier... set her up a movie, then laid on the couch to rest a bit more... and apparently he dozed off and she.... got creative.

So you can imagine our bemused smiles and barely contained laughter when she came and got us, dragged us back to the bedroom and proudly  showed us this:

She explained, calmly, happily: "I painted the fan!" Then, grabbing the pink paint with a brush stuck into it, she went on to explain, "I tried to paint the handle but my brush is done." The bristles were worn off the brush completely. 

So the question was raised... how do we handle this? How can we possibly punish her for getting creative and doing something she thought was exactly what the paints were intended for?

Instead, we laughed. We laughed and smiled and congratulated her on her work. The last thing I would ever want to do is crush my child's creative tendencies. So we told her how much we loved the fan... And then we sat down and explained that paints are not something she is allowed to play with all alone and that she should get us if she wants to paint so we can help her. She was happy. We were happy. No harm done. The paint was water-solluable so it came out of the carpet easily where she'd dripped. 

So my lesson is learned: Don't leave the paints on the table even if they are still plastic sealed... it won't stop her. Water-solluable is your friend... And a pretty fan never hurt anyone.

But most of all: 

Anything you say to your toddler can and will be interpretted creatively given the chance!

I love my life!

Arsh

Stupid Me

Solved two birds with one screwdriver. 

Wait, what? Yes you heard me.

I was looking for my camera's battery charger. I have a Kodak camera so it's one of these wall chargers that you put the rechargeable battery pack into. A few weeks back I decided to move a bookshelf from one side of the room to the other. In doing so, I covered the outlet I usually use to charge my camera battery. It's also where I plug my living room AC in. It's not what you think! I didn't forget the camera charger behind the bookshelf! In fact, I moved it when I moved the bookshelf and stuck it in a much better location. 

The problem is that.. since that day, I apparently forgot where that better location was. I thought maybe I had stuck it in my electronics drawer in the utility room where I keep spare electronics, computer parts and spare adapters for my devices. I checked... nope not there. Well there's this drawer I keep on the side of my desk that I had started putting small things in like cables I connect my camera to my pc with, miniature lan cables for quick hookups, charger for my cell phone... stuff I use more often. Well I had previously kept those things in a little glass jewel container on a small bookshelf near my desk but I moved them to the drawer recently when I broke that container. 

So I ended up checking the jewel container, the drawer on my desk, the drawer in the utility room... nothing. I was so confused. Where did I put that blasted charger? I looked all over my desk then all over the living room, the bookshelves, the kitchen counter, the utility room, my bedroom (where I've probably never taken this charger at all) and many other places. I was so baffled. I sat down at the table and stared at my camera, having a chat with my mother in law meanwhile. Staring at my camera, I looked at the top where the case was popped open. I remembered how that happened...

Nearly 3 years ago, I was at Brangus in Jasper eating dinner. I had taken Rune (then, a newborn) to the bathroom to change her diaper. I had laid her on the diaper changing table and was cleaning her when she started smiling. I had my digital camera in her diaper bag because I took pics of her ALL THE TIME. So I grabbed for the camera to catch that smile... and... it slipped out of my hand. Just completely randomly, it did a backflip out of my fingers and took a magnificent swan dive onto the tiled floor. It popped the case open at the top where the two halves met and a little plastic clip had slid up from between the crack. I was so upset until I realized the camera still worked just fine... only the sound didn't work anymore. Oh well! I can take pictures without the shutter sound. No big deal! So I never worried about it. I couldn't fix it... so I just didn't care.

Recently however, I have been doing more and more handy things. I tried to fix my Xbox when it overheated. I managed to get it apart, put Arctic Silver on it (after proper cleaning) and get it back together. No problem! I felt so handy. It still didn't work. I had probably let it go too long honestly. But oh well. I learned some things along the way.

Thinking about that while sitting at the table with my mother in law, I suddenly jumped up and grabbed a screwdriver from the utility room, then sat back down at the table and started unscrewing the tiny screws around the case on my camera. I could see how the top was messed up and how it needed to go back together. So I pulled those screws and then pushed the plastic clip back down, prying the top apart a little with the screwdriver and pressing the piece in with my fingers. The problem was that the battery that ran the sound on the camera was not connecting with the contact and thus not powering the sound part of the camera (as best as I could tell). So finally it snapped into place and the case that had been weirdly open at the top for nearly 3 years closed. I replaced the screws, felt very proud of my now completely fine digital camera, and wondered why in 3 years I had never tried this before.

So at this point, I got up and walked over to my kitchen sink to wash a little grease off my fingers that had been on the handle of the screwdriver... and looked up and there was my battery charger... in the outlet behind the sink, waiting for a battery to charge. I laughed out loud. 

The moral of the story is... don't put your battery charger in some clever place like an outlet because you will forget it is there, and it just so happens that battery chargers don't stand out if they are somewhere sensible like an outlet. 

Alternative moral: I'm an idiot sometimes. But at least I fixed my camera. 

Hope you guys can get a laugh out of my antics. I know I did. 

Arsh out.