We did spend all day painting yesterday, and had so much fun. The kiddo is amazing. When I paint, especially when there’s colors all over the drop cloth on the table, I miss my grandfather, in his white splattered painter’s overalls. He was a painter and a painter. I spent a lot of time at my grandparent’s and have come to remember my mom’s side of the family in recent years as nice, but a bit uptight about little things. Like cleaning. Not him. The kitchen, the garage/studio and the garden were a veritable riot of experimentation and wonder under his tutelage. He trusted me. And never, ever worried about the mess. Not once.
I myself have been attempting to impress–gently– upon the kiddo the need to pick up after herself/ourselves, particularly with regard to clothes and toys everywhere on the floor. After a late night session of yoga and collage work, the teacher left a rat’s nest of papers all over the floor. The student pounced on them this morning, and the floor was spic and span in no time flat. I didn’t see that coming.
We have to keep clean, Mama!
…wait, you mean the floor is somehow not the appropriate place for clothes? i generally use placement as an indicator of cleanliness. really clean clothes are on the bed or in the closet, clothes on the bedroom floor are typically worn-recently-but-passable, and clothes on the bathroom floor are off limits until after they are laundered.
at least you have a system! we have some serious chaos going on at times.
i try to keep my systems simple – the more complicated something is, the easier it is to disrupt. so i just delineate borders for different flavors of chaos. you will not, for example, find a spatula in my bedroom. in the refridgerator, possibly, but not the bedroom.