Elementary Painting/Psychology 101

One of my chores for this Sunday afternoon - my one day of the week off - was to paint a desk we're putting in the boys' room and painting (finally) the toy box/window seat I built in S's room sometime last decade. What's the one home project I loathe the most? Painting - whether it be a room or a piece of furniture, I would rather do anything but that. Alas, it was my day off, so what else would I do? Read? Watch football? Visit the zoo? Not I! Not today! I painted.

Naturally, some of the kids asked to help paint and, naturally, I said "No." Not because I couldn't use the help, but because their helping would involve me stopping, and then nothing would be accomplished. So they stormed back in the house and left me with my coffee, my cigar, my Elvis Costello and my paintbrush. After a bit I felt guilty for turning them away so quickly and, after all, it is my dream to raise a team of workers so that I can, eventually, maybe, relax on my one day a week off. So I summoned the future workers back to the workshop and pointed out the three drawers I had arranged on the floor. The drawers were all standing upright, putting the fronts - the parts to be painted - at the perfect height for this crew of Tom Sawyers. I handed C the 3" roller first and sat back to supervise.

Now, the faces of these drawers are roughly 8" x 8" and are being painted red, bright red. C painted his evenly, full strokes across the drawer until it was covered, then one pass along each beveled edge to make sure the entire piece was even, and then he asked a lot of questions about the rest of the drawer. Once finished, he handed the roller to JP. JP painted on the diagonal and then back to front and then side to side. He eventually got the drawer covered, once we pointed out the spots he'd missed and explained how to paint the edges. He also leaned into the painted surface, thus getting a red smear on the back of his shorts. How did he accomplish this, you ask? Well, his shorts were on backwards. S finished up the project by taking the roller and, using the outer edge of the roller, a technique I wasn't familiar with, made little red lines all over the drawer. They were haphazard, chaotic little lines, to be sure. Luckily for her, she had two big brothers who jumped in to give advice about holding the roller flat, painting evenly and making sure the edges were done. Over time, she finished.

Once the job was complete and I'd reclaimed the roller and shooed them out of my workspace, I touched up what they'd done and thought about how they'd each accomplished the task in their own way.

C worked compulsively and neatly, covering the wood of the drawer with red paint one 3" swath at a time. One stroke on each of the four edges and he was done. Except he wasn't done because, as the older brother, his job is also to supervise, and criticize, the work of his siblings.

JP put his shorts on backwards.

S couldn't quite grasp how the roller worked. She held it and moved it forward and back, but the roller wasn't flat. But that's how S works - in her own style. I didn't need to intervene because her brothers, C especially, stood over her and kept threatening to take over if she couldn't do it. But she could do it, and she's stubborn enough to do it the way she wants it done. And C is really lucky that she didn't make him eat that paint roller for shouting commands in her ear.

I'm already considering their next undertaking. They seem to enjoy painting, and the house does need a new coat. Perhaps I'll assign them each a side and see how it turns out. C will need to get the exact measurements and submit all of his questions in writing beforehand, and then he'll need to dress JP. S better get started soon because it could be years before she finishes her side of the house, what with mastering a paintbrush and intermittently removing it from C's various, bossy orifices.