Remedial Finger Painting

On Tuesday I had "Back to School Night" for preschool.  I knew Alice was doing great with her Kindergarten enrichment program there, but I was curious to see how Angela was doing with her "work".  As I spoke with Angela's teacher, Ms. K could not say enough about Angela's great personality and her comfort with the environment.  She was very impressed with how well and how quickly she adjusted to attending school.  However, (why is there always a 'however'?), Angela would not finger paint properly.  She will not hold her finger straight out and apply the paint with the finger pad.  Instead, Angela bends her finger such that she uses her fingernail bed as her artist's brush.

I was not surprised by this.  One of Angela's chief quirks is her dislike of anything liquid based on her hands.  She will play in the sand box for hours.  She will manipulate Play Doh with no hesitation.  But, if a drop of some liquid falls on her hands, she immediately calls for me and demands that I clean her hands off.

As I stood listening to Ms. K, I was, in fact, internally marvelling at Angela's ability to reason and adapt.  She figured out a way to finger paint without getting her hands dirty.  Had this been Alice, I would probably have freaked out and tried to find some remedial finger painting class to "correct" the problem.  Such is the joy of the second child.  You realize each child has his/her quirks and they are to be embraced.  I told Ms. K not to worry and to just give the kid a brush for painting.

I hope all parent-teacher conferences go so smoothly.