What is funny is that one mom who whose son was the same age as my oldest, thought it was amazing how I let my kids get creative. I thought it was natural to give kids lots of paper, crayons and paint… yet, she thought is was remarkable.

I knew of places where one could get inexpensive rolls of paper (the ends of 36 inch wide rolls from places that print out architectural drawings). I would roll out a few feet of the paper on the floor, and then give the kids paint, and them create.

I also have blackmail pictures of at least two of my kids who have painted their bodies with mud outside. I am keeping those safe. Along with the videos of my kids playing Robin Hood in the costumes I made (which is why I have a deviantart account!).

Now the result of my evil version of parenting (also known as “Mommy Brag Time): My 18 year old younger son is a swim teacher. This evening he came home from work and told me that one of his classes consisted on only one three year old (the 3 year old classes are typically three kids to one teacher, so two of them were not there). The child did not want to get into the water. So my son asked if he wanted to be a pirate, to which the answer was “Yeah!”. So my son got his pirate hat and sword out of his locker, took the little inflatable boat that the pool had, put the child in and went around the pool with him. They went to the other classes of older kids and stole the kick boards.

The biggest part of this brag is that he told me this (get prepared for teenagers, read the cartoon “Zits”). Because when he was three years old, his teenage instructor did the same thing to him!