Head and Body

I love to color. I would not say that I am artistic, though I have attempted my share of pottery and painting classes over the years thinking that there must be some creativity in me yet unleashed, but they never revealed anything great. In fact, as much as I have some incredibly creative friends (my best friend in college is an art teacher now, yet none of her skills rubbed off on me), I have never found the patience to "practice" art enough to actually have a hope at getting better at it. I practice running and other forms of exercise; I practice reading; I attempt to practice cooking; and oh yea, I do practice law. But art... it is one of those things that I would sit in various art classes over the years and just not have the patience to enjoy it. I was just bad enough to want to improve, but too bad to think it was possible. And this didn't really bother me actually, I just figured it wasn't my shtick and moved on to something that I showed tangible improvement with, such as running.

But oh, I love to color, with Sadie.

Being the third of four children growing up in the 1970s, we didn't have much in the way of "art supplies". I remember my father's old dress shirts being used as smocks, so we must have painted. And I remember a roll of newsprint that my mother kept in the basement and we would tear off long sheets of paper to do something artistic with, but I don't really remember what. As much as my parents relished in creating time consuming (and pricey) fourth of July projects every year of my late teens and 20s, this was not a childhood memory of mine.  The packet of construction paper that my mother kept in her closet had permanent fade lines (the packet must have sat in the sun on our kitchen table or something, so one side of a piece of red paper was more like a tannish brown from fading).

Today I told Sadie the story that I never had new crayons as a child. I thought this story was timely and important since Sadie loves taking the paper off of her crayons and sharpening and resharpening until they are nubs, and now we probably only have 45 or so crayons from the packet of 64.  All of my crayons growing up were hand-me-downs (or communally owned) from Lisette and Scott. In fact, I remember one day seeing my mother come home with a brand new box of 64 crayons when I was 6, and I remember the feeling of excitement. She had bought them (plus 20+ spiral notebooks and the like) during a Sunday afternoon trip to a drug store called Dart Drug, presumably for school supplies. I was thrilled, my first set of new crayons. And I laugh as I remember my older sister telling me in the nicest way possible that they weren't for me, or for her or Scott, as Lisette had somehow discovered that my mother was pregnant with who was to be my younger sister, and the crayons would be for the new baby!  This is not a sad memory or a 'woe is me' memory at all, for it must have been later that night that we did confront my parents and they did share the wonderful news of our expanding family, and I didn't bring up the crayons. But I honestly don't ever remember getting them to use. I really do think that my mother bought them for Carolyn. My mother still has a crazy habit of buying things to use YEARS in advance if the price is right at the time (thus the construction paper, probably decades old by the time I used it).  She is one of those people that never is without a box of spaghetti noodles, but the 12 that she has in her cupboard are probably more than 5 years old.

But back to Sadie... I love to color with Sadie. And she is just really beginning to love art. In fact, just over the past couple weeks, she turned the corner on her own and started putting bodies on people as she drew them. Last March, the pediatrician asked Sadie to draw a happy person on, of all things, the top of the tongue depressor with a ball point pen. I was so proud to see Sadie's perfectly shaped happy face. And then from the sides, right next to the ears sprung arms and then below the chin, sprang legs. The pediatrician laughed and said that while a child knows his or her body parts, the cleared vision is of the face so that is what is drawn.

And so, just recently, Sadie has started drawing the body. So instead of asking me to do the outline of it so she can put on shoes, arms, and plenty of rings and bracelets, she does it now. And the grass is often green, and the sun yellow. The letters are written in a cute vertical fashion. And while the "E" usually has 4+ horizontal lines, the "S" is now front facing. And she can draw petals on flowers. I used to do the petals, and she did the nectar. We were a team that way.

So long longer am I hearing, as much, "you draw it Mommy."  Or even worse "I am not good at writing."  Sure there are times she isn't in the mood or would rather peel the crayon paper off. But more often than not, my role now is to tape the finished product up on the door.

I love how she is growing up. I loved every minute of today with her. No tantrums, no sullenness.

She saw a statue on Monument that had an angel figure on it (Jefferson Davis, for you Richmondites) and she asked me what the angel was doing. I said I wasn't sure, and a few minutes later she said "I think she is pointing to heaven, so others will know the way, and maybe she is doing that so Lily will know the way back and she can come back to us on earth."  She is deep.

I am glad to be at the head and body stage, even if it means that I am not as needed to color. Because she has a lot bigger questions going on with which I can help.