AN: I'm going to be away for two weeks, and my lovely Beta Sherlockedmyheart will be posting the next few chapters for me over that time. That measn I won 't be able to reply to reviews as usual, so I'll do that when I get back. Anyway, this is just something I used to love doing as a child, and really want to do right now.
Yesterday we had been out and Hamish had seen a set of paints, each bright, primary colours that attracted his attention. Seeing this as we went past the craft shop he head pointed it out and of course, seen as he had wanted it and he hadn't had a present in a while I had bought him the paints.
Although these were finger-paints, which would lead to a lot more mess than usual so due to the time we got back, only a few hours before Hamish's bed time he hadn't been able to use them. Instead, earlier this morning John had gone and bought him a large roll of blank wallpaper to paint on as we felt that that a normal sheet of A4 would be insufficient if Hamish had to use his fingers and or hands to paint.
So here we were, the table and sofa pushed back in the living room and multiple rolls of wallpaper out side by side, the carpet underneath and most of the room covered with a sheet to prevent stains. Hamish was stood at the end of the room close to the window his paints in front of him. He seemed to be having a hard time deciding which colour to try first.
"Blue." I instruct him and he dips a finger in the right pot, he'd learnt his colours months ago and looks at the substance on his finger.
"Put it on the paper then, Hai." John says helpfully, but Hamish still looks doubtful. So John goes over sits down next to Hamish and dips his own finger in the green and writes out a large 'H'.
"See, 'H' for Hamish. Go on, try and copy that." John gets Hamish to sit down then takes his hand and presses his painting finger to the paper to form the 'H' underneath his own. "There you go, it's fine. Now, paint what you want."
Hamish, still seemingly wary, sticks his hand in the paint and then puts his finger straight onto the paper, not making any shape. Then, some inspiration seems to hit and he moves his finger around and around, making a circle. John decides to accompany him and finishes off Hamish's name
Hamish doesn't seem to know what to do again unsure whether he likes painting like this. "Draw me a picture, Hai."
"What?" He asks, looking at the shape he'd made.
"Draw me and Dad." He smiles and begins to draw, sticking his finger back in the paint. Five minutes later, he has two splodgey looking almost oval figures in blue, one overlaid with green, the other yellow. "What are we doing?" I ask him, walking over to his side of the painting
Hamish splutters and with a small giggle says, "Kiss."
"That's lovely, Hamish. What about you?" John says as he continues writing up all three of our names in varying colours, adding embellishments and patterns.
"Me?"
"Yes. You need to be there." I tell him and kneel down.
"You." He says as he begins drawing
"What about me?"
Hamish lifts his head and points at his paints "You."
"What do you want me to draw?" Hamish shrugs which I take as leeway to do anything so I take some of the red and drew a dinitrogen tetraoxide (N2O4) molecule. By the end of this, Hamish had lent over me and is getting close to spilling paint all over my clothes so I move the pots closer to him. Then pull him over so that he's sitting directly in front of me.
"Okay, Hamish, you should write out the rest of your name." I say as he finishes the drawing of a cat he'd decided on. I write it out for him in pencil, in large, block letters then take his hand and guide around each section with the paint on his finger.
"Good." I say as he finishes "Now write your age." I write the number two out on the paper and stick his finger in the paint and get him to follow the shape, guiding him with just slightly less conviction this time. Then I let him go and he goes back to drawing himself as a doctor.
By this time, due to the size of Hamish's drawings we are half way through the first bit of paper. Also, all his fingers are now covered in paint. John leans over me and reaches for Hamish's hand then takes the blue paint and with a finger spreads it all over his palm.
"What Dada?" Hamish asks him.
"Handprints. You must have heard us talking about fingerprints or footprints, so this is the same really."
"Except fingerprints are unique and footprints not only tell us the shape of a person's foot as a handprint does, but of their gait, height, weight, possibly age and gender, not to mention where they have been in the last few hours or more."
"You know what I mean, no need to be pedantic." John replies and presses Hamish's hand on the paper "See, there's your hand." Hamish seems immediately fascinated by this and attempts to stick his whole hand in, which is too large by quite a lot,
"No, Hamish you can't do it like that, the pot is a good centimetre too small to fit your hand into." I get up and take a plate from the cupboard and pour the paint onto it, then pass it to Hamish to dip his hands into the paint. So soon, the paper is filled up with Hamish's small handprints and the paint has also somehow ended up all the way to his forearms. At that point, he grabs my hand and sticks it into the paint then puts it onto the paper, disappointed when the print only appears partially
"Fa." He moans, assuming I've done something wrong.
"My hand wasn't coasted properly with the paint, causing the hand print to be insufficiently painted." I smile at him and cover the rest of my hand and print it next to one of his on the sheet "There, is that better?"
He touches it carefully with his finger, adding some of the red to the blue print and he turns to John, who has already began painting his own hand I take this opportunity to show him the purple he had made "Look, here." I point to the print
"See your red and my blue made…."
"Pu'ple" He says with a slight lisp, he seems to have this impediment with a few sounds but it's fine at this age and everyone seems to say it's 'cute' so it doesn't bother me that much.
"Good." I tell him then John adds his handprint to ours and Hamish grins, grabbing John's hand and placing it down on the paper again. I take the other paints from the floor, drawing a thick red line with one finger and then a similar one in yellow crossing over it "And there Hamish" I gesture "Those two-"
"Yellow and 'ed."
"Yes, they make –"
"O'ange."
"Good, so these two." I hand him the blue and then yellow so he copies my lines and then tells me "Yellow." He draws out the first line "Blue." He adds the next one over it "G'een."
"Good boy Hamish." John says "Do me some more handprints." Hamish grins and complies. Then he seems to notice the paint on his arms and rubs at it. Only succeeding at getting more all over.
"You want me to get it off?" John asks standing up and heading for a wipe.
"No." Hamish answers and spreads the paint further up his arms.
"You'll have to go in the bath." John warns
"Yay!" Hamish squeals and puts some of the paint onto his feet
"Oh, good idea. You can do footprints." I say and help him to coat his other foot which he puts out in front of him then lift him to stand straight on the second roll of paper "Walk straight up, still on the paper, and come back."
He does this, leaving his lightening footprints up and down the paper. He gets back and sits on me, putting his arms back and successfully covering my shirt in the paint. I groan inwardly but don't tell him off as he wouldn't have realised, and this shirt was old. "Off." He says not liking the feel of the paint on his feet
"Pass me the wipes please, love." I ask John and he gets them from the sofa and passes them to me. "Thanks." I wipe Hamish's feet off and he goes to draw more then laughs and decides to put some of the paint on his nose.
"Oh, Hai." John laughs. ""Wanna look?" He asks and Hamish nods so he lifts him to the mirror carefully keeping our sons paint encrusted arms away from his clothes. Hamish giggles at the sight of himself
"Pic!" He orders.
"You want me to take a photo of you? Right. Go sit on your Father's knee." And he walks off to get his camera. This takes quite a while, so instead of coming to me Hamish wonders to the wall, looks for a second then puts his hand on it.
"Nice." I say "Do all of the other colours." I pass him the respective plates and he adds more of his hand prints to the wall and I sit behind him. Just as he's finishing John comes back in.
"The wall, Sherlock!" He exclaims.
"I know, looks quite good doesn't it?"
"No, I mean that the paper is ruined."
"It was ruined years ago." I answer, we had never bothered to repaper at all after I'd shot at the face. John seemed to like it for some reason.
"Well, yeah but Mrs Hudson will still be annoyed."
"She'll be fine." I tell him but still pull Hamish down and get him to use the paper again. We stop him painting at lunchtime and I put Hamish in the bath while John prepares the food.
"Done?" He asks in disappointment as I wash all of the paint off him
"Yeah, but you can always do this tomorrow if you really want." He grins and when he's clean and changed I take him to the kitchen and John gives him a sandwich as I change into something new. As he eats, Hamish's head begins to droop- he's tired out. So as soon as he's done John puts him to bed for his nap and we go to clean up. Or rather John forces the plates into my hands and instructs me to go and clean them.
The first roll of paintings is dry so he roles the paper up and puts it in the cupboard. It doesn't seem right to hide the painting away like that just because it can't fit on the wall properly so I go the cupboard and take it back out. I unroll the paper and scan it then get the scissors. I cut out the piece with our handprints and bring it out of the bedroom. I get some bluetac and stick the picture up on the wall next to the desk then stand back and look. Hamish hand looks so much bigger here than when we last made a mould of it, which John has on his desk at work. It makes me reminisce about when he was tiny and couldn't even hold his head up and I half wish we could go back to that but I still want to enjoy the rest of his childhood (then teenage and adulthood- my god, Hamish, an adult).
John comes up behind me, "Look at you getting all sentimental." He tells me and leans over my shoulder.
"What? I like it." I tell him and turn around to face him, wrapping my arms around his neck.
"I know you are thinking about how much he's grown already, you cute little genius." He says and rests his forehead against mine. "I wish he could stay this age forever."
I lift his chin up and kiss him lightly and break away to say, "Hey, I know, but we have a lot to look forward to."
"I know, I wish we could make this age last a little longer."
"Me too, really. But we'll make sure that we enjoy this as much as we can." I crush my lips to his and bring him down to the desk chair and the kiss deepens. Then we hear Hamish yell out from upstairs and John laughs, getting up from my lap. "See, we'll even miss being interrupted like this one day."
I groan as he moves and follow him upstairs