Being a kind of toad-stool

We had a wonderful playroom session today. I bought some face paint, a couple of weeks ago, after Pelle saw one of his teachers dressed up like a toadstool, her face red with white spots.
Pelle was deeply impressed and wanted to look like her, too. Being busy painting each others face looked a great way to me to start studying our faces more carefully. Important for Pelle, who has a rather flat expression and might have trouble reading what other people say nonverbally.
Today we were going to visit gran, who has a broken ankle and needed some groceries. Before that, I wanted to play with Pelle in his playroom. Where he said he would like to use the facepaint again. As you can see, he did a great job turning me into ….. something red. It felt so good watching him carefully stroking my face with a brush, and being concentrated for so long. He even talked to my nose. But then the best part had yet to come. After taken pictures he said to me: “Mum, do you know why I painted you? Because I think gran would find it funny”. So here you saw me, later in the day, biking to gran with my red mask on, happy as can be. Because my boy contributed a feeling to my mum. A spark of empathy. He lit a fire of joy in me.