A Wild Birthday Project

While I am writing this post on May 10, it will not be posted until May 23rd after we give Nana her birthday gift.
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In order to present Nana with a personalized birthday gift, the girls and I headed out to Art 'N Play to create a little birthday magic. At Art 'n Play, there is a big play area and a ceramic studio where you can paint a piece and the studio fires it for you.

I thought the girls could play in the creative play area and I could simultaneously work on the project while I watched them. In fact, I swear I have seen other Moms doing this. But alas, I was wrong and I had to keep both girls with me in the ceramic studio while I painted a plate for Nana. When I figured this out, there was no turning back. La Nina was just dying to make something for Nana. So, I just bought La Nina a little ceramic piece to paint to keep her busy and kept going with my plan.

My gift idea was simple: A plate with both hand prints decorated kind of "Princess". Now I have managed big strategic projects professionally, but trust me, this was the most out of control project I have ever run. So, there we are painting in a studio lined with breakables: Me, La Nina and the Magster. Except the Magster was a no-show and the Magster's evil twin "Baby Destructo" showed up instead.

First, the Magster went after my paint. She stuck her hand in the paint pink paint and wiped it on me and the plate. While I was containing "Baby Destructo", La Nina stuck her blue paint paintbrush into my pink paint. I didn't notice this problem until the pink on plate started looking purple. The damage done to the paint meant we had to switch out all of my paints. While my paints were being switched and I was discussing why the pink brush only goes in the pink paint with La Nina, the Magster grabbed my paint brush to do a little art of her own...on my pink-tinged purple plate...with blue. The entire time, the ever-patient studio assistant was reassuring me, all would be ok, they could fix my plate, but I just didn't know how. My pink was purple and now I had blue added to it.

Realizing my plate would never be complete at the rate we were going, the able-assistant found crayons for the Magster in an attempt to distract her. Magster wasn't buying into the crayons with paints handy and she dumped the crayons into the cleaning water, then she spilled the water on me and my plate. I tried putting Maggie under the table for some peak-a-boo (I was desperate), but she crawled out and made a break for the display wall of ceramics. The good news is the only thing broken was my spirit.

After the longest 45 minutes of my life and thanks to a studio assistant who ended up physically restraining Maggie, I got a hand print of each girl on the plate and the girls sprinted into the Creative Play area. I was so exhausted from our "art project" we didn't stay long. I ordered called a a take out pizza place from the play area and headed home. There was no way I was making dinner after my afternoon.
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Post Script: 5/17- The girls and I picked up our presents for Nana today. The studio did a marvelous repair job and the plate was respectable in the end. La Nina is so excited to give Nana her painted dog, she doesn't understand why she has to wait. She keeps asking to go paint another plate, but I am still too tired from our last session to consider it.