77. Paint a mural on a wall in our apartment.

Wow. I never thought I'd manage to pull this one off. Painting stuff on the walls of one's home isn't usually the kind of type of activity one could reasonably expect a "sure, go for it" reaction out of one's wife, even if said wife is wonderful and supportive and generally a good sport. To be honest, I'm still not quite sure how this snuck under the radar. But it's on there now, and I figure the hassle of colour matching and going out to buy cream paint and actually painting over it will keep my little critters safe for at least a few months.

Oh yes, and that brings us to the subject of the mural. I decided it would be fun to decorate the little wall that we recently put some rain gutter bookshelves on for Sophie... And thought I'd decorate it with various insects - at least, a few of Sophie's favourites. Here's the addition of Mr. Worm...



... and a little caterpillar climbing up the side of the bookshelf...



... and finally, the finished Mr. Worm, and the entire scene - complete with two bees (insert tired Shakespeare joke here), a dragonfly, a caterpillar, a butterfly, Mr. Worm, a flower, and a ladybug.



It was lots of fun, although very stressful. The brush I bought was a little too cheap and a little too big, so I didn't feel like I was getting the detail I wanted. Plus, Sophie kept bumping into me while I was painting until I finally banished her to her highchair until Mommy came home. But all in all, I'm pretty happy. One wall in our house makes our daughter smile a little more than it used to.