Not the best idea I've had

For Father's day, I thought it would be cool to decorate Dan's card with Ian's footprints and handprints (is that a word?). Ian's footprints were so tiny when he was born, I thought it was be a cool comparison to show just how far he has come.

Impressed with my stroke of genius, I loaded Ian up in the car, and off we went to the craft store to buy blue, non-toxic, water soluble paint. After we made our paint purchase, it was time to go to work. "This shouldn't take more than 5 minutes", I thought to myself. "Get the paint, pour it into a container, dab hands/feet, get the imprints, and clean up. No problem."

What I forgot, is that my sweet baby boy is not the same barely mobile baby of few months ago. That baby of yesteryear was content to lay on his playmat or sit in his bouncy chair for hours on end.
The Ian of today, however, he is a mover and a shaker. He can crawl from the living room to the front door in 7 seconds flat. He's got places to go and people to see and he will not remain in one spot for more than, oh, 10 seconds.

All those facts totally slipped my mind.

Anyway, with our newly purchase paint, I grabbed a container and poured a wee bit of the blue paint into it. That was easy enough. I decided to start with his feet. I figured his feet would be the easiest and I would be able to keep a firm grasp on his foot, on the off chance he decided to wiggle his foot around.
I dipped Ian's foot into the blue paint. He had a look on his face that said "I don't know about this" but nothing could have prepared me for what was to come. I went to create the imprint of his foot on the card, and you could've sworn that I stuck his foot into the mouth of a hungry shark. "AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH" he shrieked, and then he did what any normal person would do when trying to defend yourself against a vicious shark attacking your foot. He kicked. I have never seen his left leg move so fast in my life. He kicked and wiggled away from me and then proceeded to roll in the floor, flailing his legs back and forth. When I finally caught him, both his legs and the floor were smeared with blue paint.

I grabbed this still wriggling child, took him into the bathroom and cleaned his legs and feet. I assured Ian that everything was OK and he calmed down.
The freshly calmed Ian and I went to have a look at the card, and there was blue blob that in no way, shape, or form resembled his foot. "Oh well", I thought. "I'll just forget the feet imprints. We'll have better luck with his hands."

That's right, I, the naive parent, still thought I could manage to get decent handprints from the little one. So we repeated the process, except this time with his left hand.
The reaction was immediate this go 'round. After I removed Ian's hand from the paint, he immediately balled it up into a fist and began yelling. I managed to get him to open his hand and quickly dabbed it on the card before he got his hand free, (the kid is freakishly strong) and then he did it. In an attempt to get the paint off of his hand, he smeared it all over his face.
I again, scooped him up and took him to the bathroom. After I made sure that he didn't have any paint in his mouth, I looked at both of us in the mirror and I completely lost it. I started laughing and I couldn't stop. Ian had managed not only to cover his own face in enough blue paint, making him worthy of smurf status, but I was also the proud owner of a few blue streaks on my face as well.
After we were both all cleaned up, I promised myself to make sure all arts and crafts projects take place outside of the house.

Ah, the joys of parenting.