Eliza likes to blow on Jim’s harmonica. Today I put the harmonica holder on her, and she wandered around like a very blond, alarmingly cheerful troubadour. We need to get her a tiny guitar.

Picasso baby dragging “Puhs!” around:

I have a focussed shot, I just liked this one better. The purse is too heavy for her to carry, so she drags it. Then she tries to open it but, stumped by the clasp, she shrieks until I do it. Then she dismantles my wallet and flings credit cards around the room, and very carefully takes out the dollars bills and brings them to me, one by one, and says, “Take!” and I stack them in a neat pile the way she likes.

A supermom in my orbit recently did an unintentional mommy driveby that made me feel guilty about not putting Eliza in daycare, implying that I would be depriving her of valuable educational and social opportunities by keeping her at home with me and Jim.

I decided that I needed to try to right this wrong by introducing more educational activities into our daily routine. For some reason, I became fixated on the idea that we should start fingerpainting or Eliza would be at a dangerous disadvantage with her peers.

So I bought some watercolors, paper, and in a fine display of Unclear on the Concept, brushes. (FINGERpainting. Brushes. Yeah.)

Yesterday I stripped Missy down to her diapers, and set her to work.

She loved the brushes, which is no surprise since she liberated my $40 Bobbie Brown make-up brush from my drawer and uses it to brush anything and everything that she decides needs brushing, including the walls and the floor. (And I have not lifted a finger because really, a $40 make-up brush? I should be smacked.)

She got right to work swirling the paintbrush around on the paper:

But what she really loved was dipping the brush into the water. Good thing all this business is non-toxic because as I took the picture, she stuck it in her mouth:

Anyway, she kept shouting “Dip!” and I kept reminding her that the point of the exercise was to put the brush ON THE PAPER.

Eventually she made this (I wrote the name):

I was telling a friend that I think blogging as a woman and mother can be a political act. I stumbled across this essay, and it beautifully articulates many of the reasons why.