A Fine Mess.

I really don't know what me or Roman will make of this photo in the years to come but for now; this is all I have of today. I don't want to say 'oh my goodness look at my messy hair/beginnings of wrinkles/general shabiness' because, well, does it even matter?

There are few and far between photos of me and Roman together. For both our sakes I told myself that'd change this year. So far it's been difficult to be in front of a camera and centre-stage...and then to see myself as others see me. But then I spotted something; our eye colour, mine and Roman's, is nearly an exact match. He was born with bright blue eyes; Bryan thought it would never change but I was so sure Ro would have green eyes. He's proved us both wrong and surprised me.

And for the sake of future reference; today we had a strange food aversion incident. I made vegan cheesy pasta (macaroni) with broccoli in it. I showed Ro that I was putting it into the mix and he was not bothered by this, or so it seemed. "Trees!" he said when he spotted the broccoli cooking. I served up his dinner and he sat beside me on the sofa to eat it. Well about 5 minutes in he started screaming hysterical and jumped right off the sofa as though he was in pain...feeling very guilty I realised I hadn't let it cool right down, thinking it would be okay to serve as is. 

"Ro! Are you okay?" I proclaimed, checking him over. I quickly realised his problem wasn't the temperature of the food but the contents and in particular; the broccoli. He wasn't expecting it at all and it had freaked him out good style. He was shaking for at least a good hour after his scare but he still ate the broccoli! For the rest of the evening he was freaked out by the neighbour using his vacuum cleaner, any slight sound and was extremely clingy. My goodness I hope I haven't traumatised the poor child!

Paint Eating Artist.

I've heard of starving artists, but never an artist that eats paint ;). 

So let me tell you about painting in the living room. You have to be pretty relaxed about mess if you allow this. You'll also need a plastic cover/sheet to protect your carpet from the worst of the spills and to let your child go half naked or wear an old top they've outgrown; it's going to get messy.

Roman successfully managed to cover himself in blue paint, make a right royal mess and work out some frustrations through painting. When he started to get annoyed with his toys, I decided it might be the time to let him paint this morning. Well, it worked out very well. As soon as the easel and paints were out his frustration cloud disappeared, replaced with this big smile. I was a very happy mum at this sight, very happy indeed.

The fact that the mess left in his trail was strenuous to clean up and a bath required to wash down the boy I didn't mind and I surprised myself with the ease of how much of a damn I didn't give about cleaning up the mess. Not that I'll be in much of a hurry to paint in the living room like this again, but I'm okay with mess - I suppose I have to be and that there will be a time in my life where I can have breakables below eye level and walls without paint on them...but I know when that day comes I will be wishing for these days; days where paint was consumed, days when I painted my hand blue and splatted it onto a clean piece of paper and Roman (and Bryan) followed suit, days where I spent a while scrubbing blue marks out of our landlord's carpet ;) and days where impromptu painting put this smile on Roman's face.