ll summer Caden has been begging to help me paint the fence. I thought it sounded like a mess, so I'd conveniently painted when Caden was otherwise occupied. Then I read an article in the Ensign (sorry, can't recall the title or author) about the importance of family. The author wrote about letting his 5 year old son help pain the front door. He said the bottom half of that door forever bore the remnants of his son's 5 year old skill, but that his son also forever remembered that bonding moment with dad. I figured I was painting outdoors, and I was down to the back side of the fence, so I had nothing to loose. I put Caden in an old shirt, handed him a brush, and felt a little like Tom Sawyer fooling others into thinking fence painting is fun. I got more paint on me and my clothes in the hour and a half Caden helped paint than I did all summer. I also had more fun. Caden was a thorough painter, who was very particular about which slat should be painted next. He kept up a running commentary about everything around us and what a good job he was doing painting. Finally he declared, "Mommy, when this section is painted I'm all done. I'm not painting any more tonight." We did 5.5 sections last night, which means after 3.5 months the fence is finally mostly painted. I have one more night of touch up type work to do, but it feels good to have so much completed. I started with 28 sections and did most of them at a pace of 1-2 per night.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Painting Blitz
A
ll summer Caden has been begging to help me paint the fence. I thought it sounded like a mess, so I'd conveniently painted when Caden was otherwise occupied. Then I read an article in the Ensign (sorry, can't recall the title or author) about the importance of family. The author wrote about letting his 5 year old son help pain the front door. He said the bottom half of that door forever bore the remnants of his son's 5 year old skill, but that his son also forever remembered that bonding moment with dad. I figured I was painting outdoors, and I was down to the back side of the fence, so I had nothing to loose. I put Caden in an old shirt, handed him a brush, and felt a little like Tom Sawyer fooling others into thinking fence painting is fun. I got more paint on me and my clothes in the hour and a half Caden helped paint than I did all summer. I also had more fun. Caden was a thorough painter, who was very particular about which slat should be painted next. He kept up a running commentary about everything around us and what a good job he was doing painting. Finally he declared, "Mommy, when this section is painted I'm all done. I'm not painting any more tonight." We did 5.5 sections last night, which means after 3.5 months the fence is finally mostly painted. I have one more night of touch up type work to do, but it feels good to have so much completed. I started with 28 sections and did most of them at a pace of 1-2 per night.
ll summer Caden has been begging to help me paint the fence. I thought it sounded like a mess, so I'd conveniently painted when Caden was otherwise occupied. Then I read an article in the Ensign (sorry, can't recall the title or author) about the importance of family. The author wrote about letting his 5 year old son help pain the front door. He said the bottom half of that door forever bore the remnants of his son's 5 year old skill, but that his son also forever remembered that bonding moment with dad. I figured I was painting outdoors, and I was down to the back side of the fence, so I had nothing to loose. I put Caden in an old shirt, handed him a brush, and felt a little like Tom Sawyer fooling others into thinking fence painting is fun. I got more paint on me and my clothes in the hour and a half Caden helped paint than I did all summer. I also had more fun. Caden was a thorough painter, who was very particular about which slat should be painted next. He kept up a running commentary about everything around us and what a good job he was doing painting. Finally he declared, "Mommy, when this section is painted I'm all done. I'm not painting any more tonight." We did 5.5 sections last night, which means after 3.5 months the fence is finally mostly painted. I have one more night of touch up type work to do, but it feels good to have so much completed. I started with 28 sections and did most of them at a pace of 1-2 per night.
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1 comment:
Nice job Caden. Clark has been working on painting his own room.
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