Crayons & Paint Will Have To Wait...

Admittedly, today has been one of those days where I seriously questioned my desire to be a parent (or a stay-at-home mom at the very least). JG tested the limits of my patience today. So much so, that I actually cried.

I really do love being a mom and I purposely ignore the stereotypical statements made by so many others who describe the toddler years as "terrible" and "catastrophic." I prefer thinking of these upcoming months as the "terrific-twos" and "thriving-threes." Unfortunataly today was not one of those "sunnier side of life" days.

I am really looking forward to watching my child's creativity grow. I want to see our refridgerator doors covered in art. I want the handprint turkey's at Thaksgiving, the half-eaten gingerbread houses at Christmas and the stick-family portraits proudly displayed amongst unrecognizable play-doh sculptures. However today's mayhem of artistic blunders has me convinced that JG just isn't ready to express his inner-Picasso.

I tried colouring with JG this morning with his Crayola crayon Tadoodles but, he was more interested in throwing them on the floor then creating a colourful masterpiece. Later, I tried to entice JG to finger paint with the edible paints I made using vanilla pudding and food colouring. This again, did not encourage the open-ended creativity I was hoping for! Instead JG simply attempted to drink the paint from the paint pots and became irritable and whiny when I tried to persuade him to paint. While I was cleaning up from the unsuccessful finger paint disaster JG found the misplaced television remote and proceeded to climb a step stool so he could "wash" it in the soapy dish water. Although I did catch him before he immersed the entire remote in suds; the remote is not functioning very well and will probably need to be replaced. My final attempt at artistic fun with JG (before I burst into tears) was play-doh! This also failed miserably with JG being more interested in the play-doh containers then the actual contents!

I realize that today may just not have been the "right" day to encourage JG's creative side and that tomorrow could be an entirely different day. However, I think I will set aside the art supplies for a few days so that we can contine to hear the sounds of fun and laughter throughout the day instead of frustration and tears.