Jasmine and the blue paste!
I had fun today. Last week I met a lady who casts baby feet in plaster so you can have little replicas to keep. This is something I get asked for a lot at the pottery, so I arranged with her that she could come to the pottery once a month and do a baby feet day. We agreed to cast Jasmine’s feet today as an example.
She arrived and unloaded a box of things onto the table including a large bowl and lots of blue powder and started mixing thick bright blue paste.
Now some of you may know that my daughter is an active interested sort of girl – not a wall flower. One of Jasmine’s nick names as a bump was “the cyclist” because when I went for my first scan the woman could not measure her for the cycling legs! More recently she gets called wriggle umps!
Back to the story: Jasmine is in the high chair and can see the table well – she has seen the blue paste. The lady (Lynne) looks over at her and says “she is very docile isn’t she.” Then perhaps catching some of the manic intensity of Jasmine’s stare says more uncertainly “Is she docile?” Now if Jasmine is docile right now it is in the same way that a leopard is docile when it is lying in the grass a meter from its’ prey. Did I mention she has SEEN THE BLUE PASTE! I don’t want to make Lynne feel stupid but nor can I leave her completely unwarned about what she is going to unleash so I say “She can be but she is going to be interested in that BLUE PASTE.”
She tells me “do you mind it on the floor and on your clothes” (she has an apron on). I say “no”. “Let’s sit her on your knee and I put this blue paste on her feet and in less than a minute it sets rubbery hard.” She assures me it’s not toxic and I strip Jasmine to nappy only. Then she Takes two huge dollops of blue paste and smears them on Jasmine’s feet. This is like putting it in a blender with the lid off! Jasmine convulses her whole body violently several times and manages to free an arm and a leg. She dives for the blue paste and snatching huge handfuls hurls them at the floor, walls, me, Lynne and wipes the remainder over her legs, body, hair and arms all the while shrieking with joy: “Weeeehaheeeeeeeeee!” “Ruuuumb!” “Hah!” “Grrrrrrrrrrruuuumeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
We try giving her a toy but she just uses it as a helpful trowel to flick paste further with!
No paste is left on her feet except a bit under each toenail, true to Lynne’s word is sets in less than a minute!
But Lynne has two children of her own and comes from hippy stock (village of Forest Row) so she is not put off. After a few comments about being a bit “wriggly” and “very active” she says that was a good practice and we will try again with a mix that will set even faster and do one foot at a time.
We trap an ecstatically happy completely blue Jasmine in a chair and I grip her about the chest and arms (her legs are trapped in the chair) while Lynne slaps instant hardening blue paste on one foot and then holds onto it for all she is worth. Jasmine howls with delight and convulses but only manages to kick the big toe off!
After repeating this with the other foot and wrapping the resulting cast in plaster bandage (making the kitchen and me white and powdery) Lynne looks at the two casts one missing a toe and one squashed where Jasmine kicked it off and says “I think these are the worst I have ever made”. Then she seems to take in my blue daughter, clothes, kitchen and indeed everything not covered in white plaster dust and asks “Um, would you like a wipe?” At which point I start laughing.
All bathed and beautiful Jasmine is looking at me... “Me? Never.”
