Tuesday, May 15, 2012

My Daughter, a Picasso with crayons

 I would like to take this time to thank Norm Larsen, 
for developing a magical water-displacing spray in 1953 called WD-40.
Annabelle has been quite the artist ever since I put a crayon in her hand.  She has drawn over 100 original drawings to date, and I have yet to discard a single one.  She has seen me sand, prime and repaint furniture and immediately decided that she would follow in my footsteps and attempt to restyle her precious pink Pottery Barn Fabric chair.  She also saw where I had traced some designs onto a large piece of MDF board and pointed to it and said "drawing" which was absolutely correct.  The next day she was extremely quite while playing which always means she is up to no good.  She came into the den where I was working on my laptop and said "ugh-oh, no-no," basically telling on herself.  I said, "What have you done?!?"  She came and took my hand and lead me to her fabric chair which she had attempted to refinish with blue and black crayon and said "no. no." and then lead me to her first official mural on the homemade MDF baby gate I had created for the stairs, and again said "no.no."  


It was beautiful!  But I had to keep the sternest face I could, so that she could be put in timeout in order to prevent beautiful masterpieces from appearing all over the house.  I know my mother never stifled my creativity, so am I stifling Annabelle's?  Even in high school when I took an exacto-blade to the wallpaper in my bedroom and cut and peeled designs on the wall, she just said I was creative!  
No punishment, and look at me now, 14 years of Murals & Things by Jamie.   
She smuggles crayons into her playroom like a prisoner sneaks a shiv into jail.  When I come to check on her, she bursts into tears before I even discover the proof of her self-expression.  Ever since the day she was born, people have told Buddy and I how much she looks like him and I have been waiting and waiting for signs of me in there.  I smile knowing she is being creative like her mommy, and pushes the boundaries.  Buddy cringes thinking he has another messy and creative lady in the house.  She does put her crayons back when she is finished with them, and you know she doesn't get that from me.  So what am I supposed to do?  How do you mould and shape them without un-moulding and un-shaping them? 

Thanks to WD-40, the crayon always comes up and out of everything.

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