Painting with a 3 year old

I have been wanting to paint our hallway for some time now, so while off work this past week Hayley and I painted the hallway.

This was the first wall Hayley "helped" with. She started on the lower portion of the wall while I did the top part. She kept needing more paint even though she had plenty. The one rule we had was that she had to ask and Mom would get her more paint. She did really well for about 5 minutes and then when I was on the ladder she "tried" to get her own paint. Needless to say she dripped it all over the floor and proceeded to step in it. She did not realize it was on her foot and the more I told her to stand still the more she moved. She couldn't understand how the paint was getting all over even when she moved away from it. She thought it was funny and so did I especially since there was plastic on the floor.

I finished up the other wall while she moved on to the next one. She was doing a great job...

until she started going to far down and too close on the sides. She was getting the paint on the door jams. She told me, "you said to paint the white parts." My fault I did say that, but I meant the white walls, not the doors. She is too smart and good at remembering things.

I did not realize while painting that she leaned against the wall. It took a lot of scrubbing to get the paint out of her hair. Hayley enjoyed painting the walls as well as herself. When it was time to paint the Dining Room the next day I made sure she was taking her nap. It was hard enough getting the yellow paint out of her hair, that I was not about to let her help with the brown. Trevor was supposed to help with that color, but decided it would be more fun to play the Nintendo Wii.