Swampy, when I am confronted by the fall-out from someone small's artistic endeavours I like to read this poem:
Sweeping Up Stars
by Kirsty Gunn
Not perhaps so strange, or so bizarre
that I should find myself
again down on my knees
and sweeping up
with dustpan and with brush
the crazed remains
of yet another
afternoon
of glitter and of glue
and paint, the craft
of your inventions, girls,
the 'let's-make-cards!' beginnings
or the 'why-not-paint-today?' exertions
of a certain kind of grey-lit hour,
the time when we've a while yet
till it's tea,
and lunch, the park's long gone ...
It's only
you two here
and me - and makes me think,
you know, consider, just how many
afternoons of this
will I have left
in one small life,
amidst the tax returns and supermarket shops
and work not done and stuff that I'm aware I should
be doing now while on my knees in some strange
corner of the room... That I'll not have much more
of this, the chance
to gather in
the bits of glitter, sweep up brightness
from the floor, to tip into the bin
bright constellations ... How much time
to sweep up stars?
Have you tried the mug cake with custard?