Thursday, February 14, 2013

Of the Daughter , the Mother and Ninja Hattori !

After years.. several years... the daughter and me  joined hands . On  a project. Project Nina Hattori Shoes

My niece's son, will be 6 this weekend. His current fancy is Ninja Hattori - the cartoon character.   Last year it was Chhota Bheem.

Each January, the niece decides the theme for her son's birthday party and we put on our thinking caps. With my kids having grown up and being out of the Birthday Party circuit , I am at a slight disadvantage when thinking of games, decor and food for the party. Googling helps sometimes. A little bit of creativity (yeah, yeah, sometimes I sprout those creative horns ) and many minds ticking together, help in putting together a rocking party.

Ninja Hattori. I had never heard of him. The niece said, "Watch Nick, on TV".   I did better. Caught an episode on You tube.  I had had similar issues with Chhota Bheem. I had thought it was a cartoon show based on the childhood of Bheema of Mahabharata!!

Ninja Hattori. He looks quite cute. Doesn't seem very popular on the theme party scene though.

I was wanting to buy  a gift for the birthday boy.  ... something related to  his current  favourite cartoon.

Last week I was looking up a website which has a lot of DIY ideas. And inspiration struck. Conferred with the daughter and we decided to paint him a pair of Ninja Hattori shoes.   We decided to draw and paint a picture of him on a pair of canvas shoes.

I bought a pair of white canvas shoes from Bata. It was fun to handle those small shoes. I downloaded an image of Hattori for the daughter to copy on the shoe. She did admirably well.

The next day we decided on the colour combinations and bought the Fabric Paints.

She loves drawing and painting. Is very confident too. She quickly painted the cartoon. One on each shoe. And she asked me to do the background.

I couldn't help but be amused at the reversal of roles. Once upon a time, not so long ago,  as the mother, I would take responsibility for the finer   and intricate parts, leaving her to do wield the wider brush . Here she was in charge.  She coaxed a reluctant me to get on  the job.   She offered   to do the outlines and left me with the wider background areas to paint. She was reassuring , when she told  me not to worry in case of any smudges,saying ,  "I will touch it up later" . She was gentle  with her  comments -  "amma, concentrate on the phinising , Phinising.... do a good job".   Phinising = finishing.

  She did not rebuke or reprimand.

Yeah,  I know of rebukes and reprimands. I was good at dishing them out.

The daughter is proving to be the better teacher.

Project Ninja Hattori !  Take a look.


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