Saturday afternoon shenanigans (Anna)

A beautiful afternoon spent in the sun at the Vancouver Children's Festival.

Emma was keen to have her face painted, and when we asked her what she wanted to be, she immediately said, "A wolf," and then added, "And I want pigs on my hands."

When she requested that, the face painter said, "A wolf! I don't know if I can do a wolf! I'm not a professional face painter or anything!"

(So much for going with the flow. I felt like saying, 'Look, she's two. She's got a good imagination. She wants a wolf. Draw something on her face that resembles a wolf. She'll do the rest. She's really not going to be picky!"

And anyway, while we're on the topic, is there such a thing as a professional face painter? Perhaps the face painter's union mandates that only profesionals can do wolves, and that their non-accredited counterparts should stick with butterflies.)

So she tried to convince Emma to change her mind.
"I could draw a lady bug on your cheek," she suggested. "Or you could be a cat. What about a butterfly?"
"Wolf." Emma said, shaking her head. "And pigs."

(We were very proud of her. Who wants to settle for a butterfly when you have a fully articulated vision for an entire cast of story book characters?)

And so Emma had her face painted as a wolf. To her credit, the face painter rose to the ooccasion, and asked Emma to help her to figure out what to draw.
"Do wolves have noses?" she said.
"Yes," said Emma.
"What colour is the wolf's nose?"
"Pink," said Emma, and so she got a pink nose.
"Do wolves have ears?"
"Yes. Brown," said Emma, and so on and so on.

And then Emma asked for a pink pig on her hand, and the face painter complied. And then Emma asked for another one on her other hand, and soon she had two pigs. And then she pulled up her sleeve to ask for another pig (because of course she needed to - ahem - go the whole hog and make sure all three of them were represented), but by then there was a queue and the face painter was showing clear signs of having been stretched well past her artistic comfort zone, so we moved on to the next thing.

Her creation would have made a lovely photo.

Other photos we would have taken had we been living less in the moment and thinking about taking photos:

-The glee of going over to Granville Island on the little boat - a family tradition

- Emma with an icecream (well gelato) in one hand and a teddy bear in the other....licking the teddy bear's head ("I spilled icecream on the teddy!" I licking it off!")

- Emma wrapped up in a blanket in her stroller (at her request) surrounded by people in shorts and t-shirts celebrating one of the hottest days so far this year (no accounting for toddler's internal thermometers)

and lots of others.

Oh, and one other amusing story, in which Emma had to defend her frog family.

Emma was playing with three plastic frogs - 2 big ones and 1 little one. She was saying things like: "This is Mummy, and this is Mumma and this is Emma. They leap onto the lily pad. Splash." One of the frogs landed near a random mother who was hanging around, and the random mother started to talk to Emma.
Random mother: Do you have a family of frogs there?
Emma: (holding up her frogs happily). Yes. Family!
Random mother: Mummy, Daddy and baby! That's a lovely family.
Emma: No. Mumma. (holding up one of the frogs to correct her.)
Random mother: Oh! That's what we say in our family, too. Mama. Mama, Daddy and baby. Great job.
Emma said "No" and gave the random mother a gorgeous and decidely scathing look as if to say, "Isn't it blatantly obvious that these frogs are from a two-Mum family? What sort of moron are you?" And then she gave up and went back to playing. It was quite funny to watch.