Chalk spray painting

I bought a couple of spray bottles the other day. The boys were excited – Bean had seen what we had planned and couldn’t wait! Today I filled them with a chalk paint mix (cornflour, food colouring and water) and let the boys loose in the garden.

We chose the bike shed to paint. It’s a great blank canvas (I’m thinking of painting it with black chalkboard paint – even Steve didn’t think it was a bad idea!) and they loved it. Bean has really got to grips (literally) with spray bottles and water guns. This time last year he was squirting himself in the face with water guns as he was stronger with his thumbs than with his fingers, but he’s stronger now and able to operate the spray triggers with his hand the right way round. He LOVED it.

Bear isn’t strong enough yet. No matter how often I tried to show him he needed to turn the bottle round to point away from him, he kept turning it to face him because that was how he was able to hold it. Thankfully he though it was pretty hilarious to squirt himself in the face with green chalk paint! Hilarious enough to do it over and over again, making Bean laugh and copy him too.

They painted the bike shed, they painted their playhouse, they painted themselves, they painted the climbing frame, they painted a giant woodlouse, they painted the floor, they tried their best to paint the wind.

Play was temporarily halted when my alarm went off reminding me that Bear had a heuristic play session at the Montessori Preschool – Steve was occupied in an interview so I scooped both boys up and headed off to the preschool (even forgetting to shut the back door in my haste! whoops) to find that we were an hour and a half early. Oh well! Might as well get some treats from the shop while we were over that way so we had a snack when we got home. Followed by more spray painting which turned into a water fight as I refilled the bottles with water. Perfect weather for squirting each other with water, breezy and fairly warm! We were dry in no time. Well, Bean and I were: Bear stepped into a giant puddle left by the overnight rains and finally had to have his trousers changed. He’d have stayed in his painted trousers until bedtime otherwise – I’d long since given up trying to keep him clean!