Don't knock my smock

Back in September, I made some potato prints for Kate and we went out on the porch to play with paint. I put my painting shirt on her (pinned up with a chip clip in the back). She called it a smock. She learned the word "smock" from Blue's Clues, and apparently understood the context well enough that she was able to identify the smock-like function of this shirt.



We had a fun time painting, and didn't make too much of a mess. Kate turned out to be more interested in painting with the paintbrush than using the potato prints, but she liked those too. (I made her a fish, a turtle, and a crab. I keep meaning to make a layout with them, but haven't gotten to it yet.)

They're doing Savior of the World again at church, and I was called upon to do some touch-up painting on the sets and props. When Kate saw me wearing my painting shirt, she said, "You're wearing your smock!" I told her I was going to the church to do some painting. When I painted the set originally, two years ago, it took way longer than it should have and I had a really hard time finding people to watch Kate while I worked. This time, fortunately, there was a lot less to do and I was able to get it all finished in a few hours. We found somebody involved in the production to take Kate to McDonald's and the park with her granddaughter while I worked. Kate was a bit upset, though, that she didn't get to help paint. Poor kid.

I was sore for a few days afterwards, from bending over that big fake rock. The color didn't quite match the rest of the set, so they wanted it redone. Also, somebody had decided to stick a few clumps of wadded-up newspaper on it, apparently in an effort to make it look more rock-like. An effort which was somewhat less than successful. Wadded-up newspaper is not a great surface for painting. I'm sure it'll look fine under the stage lights, though. Somehow I felt much less invested in the whole thing this time around.

Of course, no discussion of smocks would complete without a Calvin and Hobbes reference. Actually, I just like to say smock. Smock smock smock.