MamaStories

I purchased a cheap set of watercolors at the pharmacy a couple of days back and introduced them to Amie. The medium is of course very different to what she’s used to: those thick, goopy acrylics as well as crayons and color pencils, all of which stays more or less where you put it down.

Not so watercolors, and Amie loves it. She likes its unexpected ways, and its “colorly”-ness. She also enjoys the choice of all those colors, right there, for her. She doesn’t need Mama to squeeze paint from the five bottles of acrylic, to mix them up (with mixed results). She just needs jar of water and “presto, we’re all set” (don’t know where she picked that up). And there’s water involved! She religiously washes her brush before she stabs at a new color. She’s been painting people so the pink is already pretty much used up.

The people she draws now have bodies most of the time, and clothes. She’s serious about the skirts, pants and shoes. Often time she paints pants, and then legs, too. O yes, and all must have a bow tie! Everyone she draws - men, women, babies - must have a bow tie.

Of this person she said “his shoes are tied together!” The light pink circle on top is what is visible of the head. The darker pink oval underneath is his bow tie.

Amie now loves two-step artwork. She painted the Deep Blue Sea and was excited about waiting for it to dry before she added Baby Beluga. She sang the song throughout the process.

After reading a Caillou book about growing carrots (which is the only edible vegetable in her book), she also wanted to make a sign. She drew the carrot paying close attention to a picture of a carrot. Then we stuck it to a stick, so it can mark where she sowed the seeds. No real seeds yet, I’m afraid, so she sows them in the bedcover. Then she also needed a marker for herself, of course!

This is an old one of mine. So much fun, all those lines! But I doubt Amie would let me finish such a detailed drawing… maybe now she will…

Drawing a little bird:

And a ladybug:

Lots of legs, with feet: check. Eyes: check. Mouth: check. Ears? Hair? Check and check.

I promised to put up the video of Amie drawing this picture. I just managed to upload it onto youtube. Have a look-see!

It’s a bit long (5 minutes) but the demonstration is followed by a not-to-be-missed review of most of Amie’s “people” drawings.

Enjoy!

Amie loves this quality drawing paper. It is stiff so it won’t buckle under the pressure of her pen, and it’s smooth, sucking up the Tombow’s ink just right. Expensive materials for a two-and-a-half-year-old, true, but it’s worth it. The only thing that bothers me is that the paper is a bit larger than letter-size. Amie utilizes the page from edge to edge, so when I scan it some part of the image is cut off.

She now automatically draws bodies and attaches the arms and legs to them. I’m afraid this time it really (almost certainly) is the end of the tadpoles. Sometimes there’s even a chin or a neck, and usually also a mess of big floppy ears and crazy hair, with here and there a beard thrown in.

I videotaped her drawing the second drawing above. It got really messy as she forgot which was the head and which the body so it ended up looking like an alien! I’ll try to get it on YouTube soon so you can get an idea of her drawing: very spontaneous, with big gestures and with running commentary. It’s so funny and clever.

She is also keen on signing her name now that she can write the letters without our physical help (some verbal cues are still appreciated). In the first drawing below she ran out of space for the letter I and E so she added them in front of the A and M. And sometimes she rotates the page to get at the empty space to sign her name. So, no, she didn’t draw the human figure on the last drawing upside down (I love, though, the way the ears attach to the hairdo!)

To witness the development of Amie’s drawing, check this out or click here.

What with all the house and land hunting, premature planning of gardens and scrambling to find a new preschool - after all the hassle we went through finding one here in Brookline! - I may be blogging less, but that doesn’t mean we’re playing less around here!

And even though I haven’t posted her drawings lately, Amie is still producing on average more over three “pictures” a day.

Here are some she made yesterday:

I drew the large tree outline, which she colored with green and brown. Then she added her own tree: the blue one, on top. A trunk, a crown! She did this spontaneously, after observing the tree I drew - and the one her Baba drew for her to color yesterday.

First, “little guy”. The ears are now the prominent features, but for the rest, these tadpoles have become quite formulaic and she is getting rather bored with them.

I suggested that she might want to draw the head higher up, next time, so there is more room for the body. She immediately took that advice to heart and drew Maisy and Cyril (”Cyril starts with ssssss” and so it does!):

I don’t think it matters to her (yet) whether she has enough room for the legs. What seems to matter more is that she makes use of the entire space underneath (though all that space on top in the previous draiwng didn’t bother her a bit). She does like to draw those “long legs, Mama! Those are looong!”

And again, note the big ears. I don’t quite remember anymore how Cyril (to the left) works: I think the blue oval-ish shape is his head/body and the black oval and circle are his ears…

Then, the drawing that amazed me most! This is Bambi:

When she wanted to draw the spots on Bambi’s back, she had to ask, though: “Where is Bambi’s back?” How strangely they sort out their shapes and body parts and directions. wish I could see through her eyes (and brain)!

(About her signature: she wrote the A and the i by herself. I guided her hand for the M and described the E verbally as she drew it. )

(If you want to follow the development of Amie’s drawing, check this out or click here.)

Amie drew “The People” today. 4 of them. 1 big person and 3 tiny ones:

She also signed her name on the back:

We’ve been working on letters, and this is her first full written word (besides “8oo”, i.e., “Boo”). The A she has down pat. The M still tends to flatten out and go on at length. For the i and the e she needs a reminder in the form of a verbal description: “a line up with a dot on top”, “a line up and three short lines across”.

She has been very keyed up lately. Very repetitive, anxiously so sometimes, swallowing sounds and whole words in order to get it out as fast as possible: a song sung for the tenth time, a statement made the fifth time around. She talks and sings nonstop. She can’t fall asleep because her mind is racing. Her head hurts when you comb her hair. “Growth spurt,” we call it.

She has also been very imaginative, making up songs and stories, some cute (”Yesterday there was a dinosaur here and we played well together”) and some quite outrageous (”Mama pooped on the floor yesterday and I had to clean it up!” - so not true!).

Toddler life. Nonstop. Breathtaking.

We are big fans over here of Rosemary Wells. We adore the Mother Goose book she did with Iona Opie, but our absolute favorites are the Voyage to the Bunny Planet books. There are three of them, but we only own The Island Light (about Felix) and Moss Pillows (about Robert). I stumbled upon them at a garage sale. The other one, First Tomatoes, I haven’t been able to find.

Amie was at first fascinated with Felix being held down for a shot and having to drink medicine that tastes of gasoline. Now she is more interested in the bunnies’ real problems: Felix being sick in front of the whole art class and his parents forgetting to kiss him goodnight, bespectacled Robert’s need to be alone in a house full of rowdy cousins, arguing adults and noisy television. She totally understands that they “need a visit to the Bunny Planet”. She has even started speaking of going there herself (”When I was a baby and I was sad, Janet came and took me to the Bunny Planet” - Janet BTW is the Queen of the Bunny Planet).

DH was not so keen on the stories: child bunnies under stress escaping to imaginary worlds that wholly cater to their fantasies! But I like the quirkiness. I even say they actually demonstrate great compassion and understanding. And I love-love-love the illustrations.

Today Amie made a double-sided drawing and dictated a letter to Rosemary Wells requesting that she write more Bunny Planet books. We’re putting it in the mailbox tomorrow.

Robert

Felix and Janet, the Queen of the Bunny Planet

As you can see, the tadpoles are back again, exclusively. Those bodies were only a blip. And for the most part the mouths are back inside the faces. But look at the ears now!

The first O on the last page is the Bunny Planet. Then it says “Felix” and “Janet” - she is so into “writing” now!

Rosemary has her own website with activities, coloring pages and bunny money.

Amie has been making strides with her drawing.

She has been grouping little tadpole figures together on one page - my suggestion, that we use the “white” on the paper a bit more. She has also been mixing the mouth inside with the mouth outside the face figures.

But overall, the figures had become formulaic, as you can see from the following drawing (notice her signature in the bottom right corner):

Perhaps she thought it was time for a change. Chaos ensued:

And:

At first I couldn’t figure out what was happening, and neither could she! She couldn’t explain what was what in these protozoic creatures. Until, a couple of days later, I realized (wondered) that she was probably struggling with the body. Because this is what happened next:

- Is that a body, Amie?

- It’s Sulley’s body. And there is Boo.

As you can see, Sulley has a body, “big hairy arms” and lots of “hair all over”. Both he and Boo have feet (Boo has shoes too), ears and hands.

Yes, that’s Sulley’s smile underneath his body. The big part was at first the head, with the smile underneath. But then she reconsidered and added a new head on top!

She wasn’t totally convinced yet, though. For instance, Boo’s body, she said, is that smaller circle inside her face. Still, her next drawing was quite clear:

Sulley again, with his name “spelled out” on the top left and her signatures below it.

Is this the end of the tadpoles? She’s drawn a couple more since then, but they might be stragglers, like the hapless Neanderthals, doomed to extinction.

The pressure’s on when there’s a Big Girl (6-year-old L) watching you!

And despite Baba’s efforts, the smiles as you can see still go underneath. And she still hasn’t made up her mind whether she’s a leftie (like Mama) or a rightie (like her Baba).

The “look L is eating all her vegetables!” didn’t work, though. Amie has sharpened her logical thinking on the vegetable issue. Last week:

- If have to eat your vegetables if you want to grow and become a big girl.

- When I am a big girl, then I’ll eat my vegetables.

- Noooo, you won’t become a big girl if you don’t eat your vegetables [the speaking in emphases is contagious]

- [Thinks for a moment] Then I want to stay small.