Caught "Magenta" Handed

Seeing as though this is my fifteenth year teaching I feel like I've gotten pretty good at spotting kids that are up to no good. They don't realize it, but they have a certain posture about them. They also do a lot of looking over their shoulders, or checking to see if I notice them. It's these furtive glances that make them stand out in the first place. Yes, those mischievous darlings are incredibly easy to spot.

Conversly when it comes to my own kid I'm usually a bit slow on the uptake. Maybe it's because I'm at home that I've lowered my defenses and toned down the teacher radar, but I often won't know that Abby is up to something until she is well into whatever she is doing. There have been many a time that I've walked into the room to find she's tied up a selection of her stuffed animals - with my knitting yarn.  There are other times that I've glanced over to see her coloring, only to find out when she looks up at me that along with filling her paper with color, she's also filled her face with color. Now, when this happens Abby will have one of two responses to my, "Oh, Abby, What did you do?" She will either try to hide, or tell me to, "Shhhh." Tonight she went with option number one.

After dinner Abby wanted to play with her new art set, which includes watercolor paints. She used these the other day, and even though she got paint on her shirt (which I have no idea how she did that since she was wearing a paint shirt that didn't get anything on it), she still was pretty good with them. Not wanting to fight tonight I set her up with the paints, paintbrush, paper, and a touch of water in a bowl.

She was quiet for quite some time and I should have known something was up. It wasn't until I spied her through the window of our sunroom that I saw just what she'd been doing. She very proudly exclaimed, "Look at my hands, Mama!" I did and was rather surprised at what I saw. Both hands were completely black. Somehow, with that tiny little plastic paint brush she'd managed to coat her hands in black watercolor paint. She knew as soon as I gasped that it was time to hide those hands - and that's what she did. Knowing there was nothing to do but try to clean them off I tried to tell her that it was okay - that I wasn't mad at her, but I could tell she still felt bad. It was finally the promise of playing in some bubbles in the sink that got her in a better mood. Although we got most of the paint off in a jiffy, she must have begun with purple because we got to the final layer of paint and her hands seemed to be stained a lovely magenta color. This got a bit better with some scrubbing, but if you really look at her hands you know she was into something.

The paints were promptly put away, and I made sure to sit right beside her as she colored in one of her coloring books - with crayons. You might say that tonight I caught her "magenta" handed - and we both learned from that.

She looks so angelic, doesn't she?