my artist

Abby loves to color. She wants to color before she eats breakfast in the morning. It's the first thing she asks for everyday. As soon as we come downstairs, she runs over to her table and picks up her art caddy that houses her crayons, markers, and other supplies and holds it up as high as she can and says "Cuwer peas?"

blurry, but you get the idea.

Unfortunately, for Abby, coloring has to wait until after our morning routine. But we do it everyday at some point. If she's coloring with crayons, I can let her be semi independent. If she's using markers, I sit next to her and monitor every move. We did a little bit of both today, and she had a really great time.

can you see how content she is?

...so serious

our final product

Well, that was fun and Abby was pleased with her artwork. She kept saying "so pretty!".....which comes out more like "soo pre-ee" We packed up the crayons and markers and I went about cleaning out some closets and other chores that needed to be done. It didn't take long before Abby came and got me and was excitedly saying "A! Oh, an A!" My first reaction was to parrot a response back like "yes, I see, very good, and A, nice" but then it dawned on me that this is what she says after she's colored on something. So, I jumped up and Abby proudly led me to a box I had pulled out of a closet and showed me where she had scribbled (ie: colored the letter "A") She was very proud of herself.

I told her that coloring was for paper and redirected her. I didn't really care if she colored on the box, but I figured it was good to redirect to paper anyhow. I went back to work and a few minutes later, here she comes again. I figured she was going to lead me back to the box. But this time, she showed me where she had colored an "A" on one of our shelves. Sigh. Redirect, confiscate crayons (which I thought I had put them all away earlier) and get to cleaning the shelf.

As I finished the shelf, she came up to me again , "A, mama! A!" Sigh. This time it was on her doll, a diaper pad, and a leather ottoman. All were cleaned easily.

I couldn't figure out where she was getting the crayons. My best guess is that she was stashing them in secret for just this occasion. Each time she came up to me to show me her latest artwork, I explained coloring was for paper, redirected her and went about cleaning it up.

pantry door artwork

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking - why didn't you just watch her? Well, I was watching her. I was watching her while I was doing other things. This means I was making sure she didn't fall down stairs, hurt herself, leave the house, or do anything else dangerous. But it means she spent a lot of time playing by herself while I cleaned. Most of the time, she was stacking blocks or taking care of her babies. But, then, every once in a while, she would find a crayon and go test it out. I guess it just wasn't important enough to me for me to lock her up or to quit what I was working on. I mean, they're just crayons, right?

And, truth be told, I actually found it endearing how excited she was to show me each new scribble. Little did she know she was telling on herself.

Well, anyway, life goes on. I put up this old frame today - I rescued it from somewhere a long time ago and have never done anything with it. I decided I would just hang it and decide what to do with it later.

It didn't take me long; however, to figure a good use for it.

as my sister pointed out - this signed original is priceless.

I'm happy Abs enjoys coloring. I know most kids do - I mean, what's not fun about coloring? I still like to do it. Perhaps she's a budding artist, maybe not. Either way, I'm happy to see her expressing her creativity - on my pantry doors or otherwise.