Rocktober

We hauled out the rock painting stuff for a couple of 7-year-olds in the neighborhood yesterday. All involved sat outside and wore masks. The adults half-heartedly brushed a little paint on a few rocks, but it just wasn't the same as those therapeutic summer paint-sessions. 

Perhaps it was the angle of the afternoon the sun, or the chill in the breezeway where we set up, but once I went to the trouble of trying to mix a perfect chocolate-chip-cookie golden brown tint and, after applying it, realized that I had just literally painted a rock brown, I was done.

The kids had a good time though, and their liberal use of all the glitter and paint we had so carefully collected and cared for over the summer reminded Heidi of why she could never be an elementary school teacher. I don't think it was quite as hard for me to watch them slather contrasting colors over wet paint, smearing it all into a muddy mess and then strewing it with glitter and abandon, but it wasn't very satisfying either.

Until this morning when I heard excited voices outside the door. It was the kids showing off the rocks they had left to dry to a dad who hadn't been there. Then, their pride became mine, too, and I knew that all that paint and glitter had been for a good cause. This world can use all the sparkle we can find.