Saturday morning mess

I started to say "Do you want to watch a movie?" and am so very glad he didn't hear me or at least didn't respond. I am glad because my reason for asking was purely selfish: it would mean that I would have less of a mess to clean up.

But instead, I stepped away and just the next 20 minutes unfold.

It was in my stepping away that allowed the play to begin. Because if I had supervised, I would have steered the creativity into "less messy" options and made suggestions that would have not wasted 1/2 a roll of paper towel. But in stepping away and doing my own thing, unsupervised paint time led to:

A roll of paper towel becoming a street, the blank canvases becoming a cake with the paint being the dough, a handful of crayons being stripped of their paper shell to become something I don't totally comprehend and the boy covered in blue and green paint. 

Yes, there was a mess to clean up and yes, this was only possible on our enclosed porch because in 6 months the whole thing is going to get torn apart. There is paint in the floor that won't come off, I learned that red plus blue plus yellow paint makes a dreary brown similar to the color of our house and I discovered that crayons only need about 15 minutes in the roasting sun before they melt into an oozing rendition of their former selves and then only 2 minutes to cool and harden into an irremovable glob of color.

Yes, it was a mess.

But I think he and I both learned so much more than if I had plopped him in front of another episode of Thomas.