Tuesday, February 10, 2009

The Elusive Baby Handprint

About a year ago, a couple of Bug's little friends enrolled in a local childcare program, and all of a sudden, artwork started appearing on their refrigerators. Colorful shapes, funny finger paintings and indiscriminate scribbles provided magnetized proof of all the wonderful things these young ones were learning.

I started to fear that keeping my son at home with me might be putting him behind in life. Because while he could talk on a cell phone, bang a computer keyboard and fold some mean laundry, the craft projects were few and far between in Bug's world.

So, we bought some chubby crayons and alphabet magnets, and Bug went to town coloring and gluing and having a downright grand old time decorating our fridge. I felt better.

Until I noticed the handprints. Bug's little childcare-attending pals regularly carted home perfectly captured little handprints stamped onto their artwork. Try as I might, I could never, never seem to get Bug's squirmy little digits to cooperate with my plans to capture their cuteness for time and eternity. Whenever I attempted a handprint, it ended up looking like an inkblot gone wrong.

And so, alas, Bug has tragically few handprints preserved in the baby book. Until I checked out a friend's blog the other day, that is. She had the most ingenious idea for memorializing tiny fingers. It's called the copy machine. No more inky smears. No more fists full of paint. I finally have a way to preserve the preciousness! Check it out:


And please, please, please nobody tell me that copy machines cause cancer. I might just be forced to enroll Bug in preschool tomorrow.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I made a hand-print platter for my mother-in-law for Christmas, and got very frustrated trying to get good prints. I finally traced the girls' hands onto paper, then traced those prints onto the platter with a paint pen.

I have no idea how those pre-school teachers do it. I guess it's just one of the secrets of their trade.

Amber B. said...

That looks great! My munchkin did it by accident playing with the copier, but it worked out well. Glad you got your hand print!!