Grit never learns

Following yesterday's bruising experience in the front room, Pollyanna Meinhof (aka Grit) thinks she has now learned something about unsupervised children. She thinks the best way to deal with this issue is to recite rules. So she has said to Shark, using her sternest voice and pointiest finger, 'If you are going to paint you must do three things. One, put newspaper over the table. Two, wear an apron. Three, clean up your brushes and paint pots. Repeat back to me what you are going to do.'

Shark obliges, faultlessly. With a pure girl scout face like that she could be swearing on the Queen's head. Ha! Thinks mummy Grit, returning to work and typesetting a very long text on Nahuatl commas. Now I'm getting these children trained!

And indeed, forty minutes later, Grit pops back and inspects the table and it is very clean. Shark has spilled not a drop of black paint anywhere. On the table there is a painted picture of a water spirit. A bit heavy on the black, I think, but never mind. The newspaper has been scrunched up into the paper recycling bin and the apron is hanging up, nearly folded. I see Shark has cleaned up her brushes and put them away too. And I am smug.

Until I see the bathroom.


Yes, that's a bathtub filled with black paint.