Holly had a birthday party this afternoon. She'll be six in a couple of days so we had a few friends in from from school and a couple of mums roped in to help. (M and I do 'pathetic' very well.)
One of Holly's best friends at school is Jodie. Jodie's mum, Caroline, is landscape painter, you can't walk into a craftshop round here without seeing her prints of seascapes and moody mountains on the walls. The other day, half jokingly, I suggested that instead of just dropping Jodie off at the party and running away, she should stay and paint the kids' faces - being as she knew one end of the paintbrush from another, and I was desperate to think of some way of keeping the kids amused while I hid in the kitchen. (My plan for the whole party being to stay in there as much as possible and threw piles food out to them at regular intervals. Good plan. It nearly worked.)
Much to my surprise (and relief) Caroline said yes.
When I told Holly that Jodie's mum was going to do face-painting at her party, her first reaction was to jump up and down in the universal littlegirl bodyspeak for great excitement: "Hurray!" she yelled, "She can paint mountains on my face!" - that was her second reaction too - and her third. All suggestions of more usual facepainty subjects were stoutly ignored. And so today - when everyone else had pretty butterflies, and tigers, and dinosaurs on their faces - Holly had the sun setting over the Arnamurchan Peninsular plastered all over her for the whole party.

She loved it.

I love her.

I hope she's still as weird and funny when she's sixteen.