A mutant apple

We have an eclectic collection of soup bowls painted by family members and significant others. Soup is such an easy meal when the masses are home but I was quickly running out of bowls to meet the need.

I know. Stop adding kids.

I did. But now they are the ones bringing more bodies home. And these new ones stay, too.

It doesn't look like it will end any time soon (and I don't want it to!) So we solved the problem, and exercised our creativity at the same time, with a fun soup bowl collection. Some of us may or may not have gone more than once. We may or may not be addicted. We may or may not keep going since this family isn't downsizing anytime soon. And having a plan at Color Me Mine is much better than coming home with a painted frog trinket. Just sayin'.

Until just recently, Victor and Sarah were the only ones who hadn't contributed to our collection. And while we're still working on getting Sarah to a Color Me Mine either in Kentucky or PA or wherever she wants to go, I finally got brave enough to take Victor over the Christmas holidays.

It was between all that stomach bug ickiness. A small portion of the family, those deemed most bug-resistant and those been-there-done-that-not-getting-that-bug-again and those who know how to travel in a packed car without hitting, biting, kicking, scratching or spitting on others, had headed out to visit the relatives in Ohio. Jesse and Megan offered to help with Victor for an evening so I proposed my plan...

I'll go to Color Me Mine and paint the obligatory three coats, alert Jesse and Megan as to when they could bring Victor to the mall, he'd add some paint, and then they could whisk him away while I cleaned up. This way it wouldn't matter what Mr. Victor did, the bowl would be sufficiently covered. I assumed he'd haphazardly paint and it wouldn't really look like anything, but would still hold soup so would meet my goal.

We explained this plan to him and mentioned that Isaac's bowl looks like a watermelon. That's all Victor needed to hear, he decided that he was making an apple.

Ok then. He worked very hard to cover the whole outside in red and asked me to help fill in when he couldn't adequately see all of the still-white patches. Which was just fine with me. I was itching to get my own bowl made so pacified myself by helping him.

Not bad. He did originally ask me to help him make 20 seeds inside his apple.

We compromised with six. I know. I know. It's his project. I should have let him make as many as he wanted. But my perfectionist side just couldn't do it. And while six is still a mutant apple, it looks more apple-y than an apple with twenty seeds.