Artistic Expressions

My little Brown Eyed Girl has always been an artist. 

She loves to color. 

She loves to draw.

She will sit for hours coloring, doodling, making circles, squares and triangles and practicing the letter 'H'. She loves to color at the table while I cook dinner. We talk about her day and sometimes I pick up a crayon while I wait for the water to finish boiling.

Mr Blue Eyes can hardly wait to get his hands on those crayons and coloring books.

She probable has 20 coloring books. 

She has a whole big box of Crayola crayons and markers.

She will wake up first thing in the morning, grab her Leapfrog Scribble and Write and practice her shapes and letters while sipping her milk and watching cartoons. 

 

She likes to watch cartoons and color. 

She likes to color next to us in the family room while we wind down in the evenings watching a movie. 

We let her draw or color in her books using one of the aweful TV trays Handy Man loves. 

My dad is an artist. 

Handy Man often says that our Brown Eyed Girl takes after her Grand-pop. 

For Christmas, Santa decided to bring her this really cool easel. Chalk on one side, dry erase board on the other. Both sides are magnetic so she can put letters and numbers on either side to practice her letters and spelling words some day. There is a fancy clip at the top on both sides so she can even draw on paper. 

It is quite the deluxe little art center. 

I am doing everything I can to encourage and foster this little budding artist. 

But sometimes...

The need for artistic expression gets the best of her. 

And then we have this...

Mr Blue Eyes' cute little quilt - I searched for five months online for the perfect decor for his room while I was pregnant until I found this quilt.

This is what happens when she wonders with a pen in hand.

 

Poor little wooded hollow animals.

Poor, beautiful quilt. 

Thank goodness for the invention of rubbing alcohol and the electric washing machine. 

The quilt is beautiful once again. 

We had a long, long, long conversation about coloring that day. 

We only color or draw on paper.

***

Every new mom should know this one very critical piece of information. 

As wonderful as the that moment might seem, when you realize your house is finally quiet, the children are finally quiet, everywhere around you is suddenly so perfectly quiet...

You Should Be Afraid!

Be VERY AFRAID!!

Quiet is BAD!

Quiet means trouble.

Quiet means the children are up to no good.

Quiet means the children are destroying something.

Be prepared... it's not going to be pretty. 

It's going to be the aftermath of a very permanent marker.

Not on paper.

You would be so lucky to have it be on the walls where you could eventually just re-paint. 

No my friend.

No.

It will be on the very expensive, custom growth chart wall hang you got as a shower gift. The one you have already been tracking her growth with. The one with the cute little hash marks, clearly dating each milestone in growth. The one with her name and birth date perfectly embroidered at the top that hangs in her room. 

And she will have drawn all over it.

And it will make you cry.

It will make you get online and see just how expensive it actually was because you want a new one that she hasn't destroyed.

And you will cry.

And then...

You will find the marker hidden in her drawer, take the marker and neatly date the side of the wall hang and title it "Artwork By Hailey."

And someday when she is older, you can take out that wall hang from her memories box and your can show her what a little %^$# she was when she was three.