When Feets was about 18 months old, she couldn't bear to get her fingers dirty. After a colleague commented that Feets surely must love painting, as a daughter of mine, I realised that something had to be done about this issue. Similarly, she was on the brink of starting to recognise colours.
I decided I needed to come up with a painting activity that I was myself invested in, that I could invite Feets to help me with - no more half-heartedly showing Feets what she could do with the paint while keeping my own hands as clean as possible; I would start painting and Feets could help me if she wanted to.
She also loved shoes at the time - indeed, 'shoes' was her first word. So I drew pictures of all the shoes in our house onto cereal packets and painted them with Feets ... with plans to make a book of colours and rhyming words alongside, loosely inspired by The Foot Book by Dr Seuss, which we loved.
Well, we didn't finish that project. I couldn't keep up with the speed of her learning, and she knew her colours long before I was ready.
But, roll on three years, and I found myself in exactly the same spot with Bean - after a messy play session at a gallery where I couldn't convince her to do anything, I decided to open the half-finished folder of painted shoes, draw a few new ones, and invite Bean to help with them.
Well, time is fast running out once again, but fingers crossed, the book will be finished before it's too late! I've created characters for Feets, Bean, myself and Mr Liam, and they will scramble over the shoes throughout the story. Watch this space!
I decided I needed to come up with a painting activity that I was myself invested in, that I could invite Feets to help me with - no more half-heartedly showing Feets what she could do with the paint while keeping my own hands as clean as possible; I would start painting and Feets could help me if she wanted to.
She also loved shoes at the time - indeed, 'shoes' was her first word. So I drew pictures of all the shoes in our house onto cereal packets and painted them with Feets ... with plans to make a book of colours and rhyming words alongside, loosely inspired by The Foot Book by Dr Seuss, which we loved.Well, we didn't finish that project. I couldn't keep up with the speed of her learning, and she knew her colours long before I was ready.
But, roll on three years, and I found myself in exactly the same spot with Bean - after a messy play session at a gallery where I couldn't convince her to do anything, I decided to open the half-finished folder of painted shoes, draw a few new ones, and invite Bean to help with them.
Well, time is fast running out once again, but fingers crossed, the book will be finished before it's too late! I've created characters for Feets, Bean, myself and Mr Liam, and they will scramble over the shoes throughout the story. Watch this space!
