Painting Tzipporah

My nephew has been helping his landlord the past few days with his lawn business, so I have had the pleasure of keeping Tzipporah (Zi*pi). She really is a delight and we have a very good time. I think I enjoy it as much as she does and it certainly fills my need to be “school teacher-ish.” Today when I picked her up from Head Start she noticed some things in the other back seat of my car. She immediately started in with the questions: “What’s that?  Who’s is it? Why did they leave it in your car? Can we take it to them?” It was actually KD’s dad’s raincoat, hat and umbrella from yesterday when I took he and L*nda to the airport. They really didn’t have a need for the items in Arizona so they just left them in my car. I had pondered what to do with them, but just thought I’d worry with it later, but Zi*pi couldn’t let it go. It was really bothering her. I finally gave in and said we could take them to Carl’s office and leave them there for him. She agreed, so off we went. When we got to the office, as we turned the corner, KD’s brother R*ndy turned the other corner. He asked me “What are you doing here?” I told him and then went into Carl’s office to put the items on the sofa. When we went in the office Zi*pi said, “That looked like J*hn’s dad?” I laughed and told her “It was J*hn’s dad.“ Then she saw a photo of J*hn on the table and said, “That is J*hn.” I told her we were all in the same family, but she just couldn’t get a handle on it. I think she was confused because she knows they are not in “our” family and are never at our S*nderson family gatherings. I tried to explain that we have more than one part of family. It was really cute though.  After we got back in the car I told her we would go to Michael’s to see if we could find a project for after nap time. We wandered around until she finally found a little ceramic bird she wanted to paint. I said, “They have other animals to paint. Are you sure you want the bird?” To which she replied, “Yes! My name means ‘little bird.’” I already knew that but thought it was adorable that she was so proud of her name meaning. According to the web site Behind The Name
ZIPPORAH  Gender: Feminine  Usage: Biblical, Hebrew Pronounced: zi-PAWR-ə  (English), ZIP-ər-ə From the Hebrew name צִפּוֹרָה (Tzipporah) which meant "bird". In the Old Testament Zipporah was the wife of Moses.
We bought the items and then headed home. Zi*pi played with the dogs for a little while and then I told her it was nap time. She picked out a couple of books to read and then dozed off. After she woke up she had a quick snack and then announced, “I’m ready to paint my bird. I’m going to paint her pink and purple.” I said, “Oh, so your bird is a girl?” Zi*pi said “Yes.” I asked her, “Is her name Tz*pporah?” To which she answered incredulously, “No! It’s Toni!” She did a really good job of painting and I can’t believe how much she has grown up in the last couple of years. After she was finished she proclaimed, “I’m a great artist!”  Here are some photos of the artist Tzip*orah in action.

Paints ready? Check!


Steady. Careful.
 


Purple is perfect for the head.

So meticulous! Such concentration.
 


Her tongue was a BIG help. I tried to get a photo with her tongue out, but never got it.
 
Wonder what adventure we will have tomorrow?