musings and mutterings

At some point on any given day, my kitchen looks like this...

Apparently the bounds of creative genius around here are too large to be confined by mere table or counter top. Although that may need to change since the baby gut makes bending over to sweep up the little pieces during clean up harder and harder. If you ever come over and it's still on the floor, it means I have given up until mid june-ish.

So, there is a lot of drawing and cutting and pasting in our house (often not where we are supposed to. Not a day went by last week that Thomas did not get his hands on a pen and "decorate" the couch, which has by now become more of a conversation piece than an attractive place to sit.) Today in particular, Samuel spent 3 hours earnestly creating and cutting out a monster and aphid army. We read the grouchy ladybug awhile ago and for some reason, the Aphids in the book captured his fancy the most, so we have seen a lot of drawings and had a lot of discussions on that particular bug. Aphids and Monsters together I don't so much get, but that is my boy for you. Here is the final result (not including the ones he taped to his wall). Now he calls them "my paper friends." I know, I know...he is going to school tomorrow where he can make real friends of the human boy variety.

Thomas, who would leap off a cliff if his brother deigned to do so first, has also spent a lot of time creating and we are actually pretty proud that his art is now recognizable. Today, while sam was churning out his strange army, Thomas drew picture after picture of J. Each one he proudly brought to me and announced that it was a picture of "Cranky Daddy." We can't figure it out since J hasn't been home from work before 8 any night this week and hasn't been here much to be cranky or otherwise. Given the dad-working-late-every-night scenario, it would make much more sense if T was drawing "cranky mommy" pictures, but I seem to have been spared for the moment. Here is the masterpiece complete with a guided tour. Not bad for a two year old!

1. Eyes, mouth and chin (no nose!)

2. Arms

3. Legs

As long as this post is about the generous muses in our home, I am going to share another Samuel creation. When he is not talking about aphids these days, he generally wants to talk about camping and what we will do when we go and what J has done when he went, etc. These discussions led him to draw this picture tonight:

1. A half view of me climbing a mountain (why it is so small compared to everyone else's mountain is not something I am willing to think about at the moment).

2. J climbing his mountain.

3. Samuel's mountain

4. A river with a fish jumping out.

5. Samuel cooking a fish on a stick over a campfire.

6. Samuel's tent

7. Thomas and his mountain (Seriously?!! The two year old can hack a bigger mountain than me? Not thinking about it...)