Thursday, September 2, 2010

My Little Artist

When HP & I moved into our house 6 years ago, we re-painted all of the walls. (Well, HP & some of our friends did. I was quite preggo, so I tried to look busy doing something else.)

I picked out a higher gloss paint thinking that we would soon have little hands touching & probably drawing on them. And I wanted a slick finish so we could (theoretically) clean off the wall surfaces a little more easily.

Emelye came. Then Josh came. And there were no written markings on the wall. I had a mixture of emotion -- patting myself on the back for having awesome kids that don't mark on the walls and kicking myself a little thinking the high gloss paint wasn't really worth it.

Then Addie came. Addie met markers, crayons, pencils, & pens. She will mark on any surface, including herself, with any type of marking instrument. And don't blink. She's quite sneaky, holding pens under the table & looking so innocent all the while drawing on the chair where she sits.

My friend Shawna remarked that she had never seen Addie w/o some lovely Addie illustrations to decorate her legs & arms. She also told me that she & Scamp hide the markers & crayons before Addie comes over.

Last month I went on a crusade to round up all marking instruments & put them in a combination safe. No joking here. I found a lovely little locking file box at Office Depot. That helped some. The thing to remember about Addie is that she is sneaky. So, I may have the crayons out for the kids to color while I make dinner. She will actually take a few crayons out of her box & hide them for later use.

So, while I don't always take her markings in stride, I am glad that we have high gloss paint & I am thankful for her creativity. And I do smile (usually) to myself when I see her latest drawing on her legs. (Truth be told, those don't really bother me because they get rid of themselves in the bath.

Here's one of her latest (before I hid the crayons):

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Our Moths Have Emerged!

So in my last post, I mentioned something about finding some white caterpillars around the b'fly garden & identifying them as Virginia Tiger Moth caterpillars. Well, the first one emerged a few days ago & I wanted to share some pics.

Emelye put him outside to "be with his family" once he emerged.
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Smile!
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