A Bad Bug That Says Bad Words

Last night Indio told us a story of his picture as he colored: He told us it was a bad bug. He was bad because said bad words ('stupid' and 'boobadies') and made bad choices. Somewhere in there he added The Man with the Yellow Hat and a mosquito.



This picture made me look up some other posts I swore I posted of Indio creating artistic masterpieces...only to find I had never posted them. So disappointing, but not surprising. Not one to let chronological order get me down, I post them now. Here is a good choice (self face painting) made October 9, 2012:
And a watercolor-turned-finger-painting session from September 2, 2012:



With stories now accompanying his artwork, I can't wait to see what we come up with over the next year.

Photojourna.list: Chinese Lantern Festival

The Chinese Lantern Festival at Missouri Botanical Gardens as close to magical as you can get in real life. The massive silk and wire lanterns (some are 3 stories high) are scattered around the grounds of the gardens and light up the summer nights. So glad we checked it out before the festival ends.

This Is Why We Don't Have Nice Things

My sister really seems to have her parenting act together (she sews, she creates, she cuts her baby's hair...poor  little mulleted baby girl), so I decided to take one of her ideas and make it my own: an informal art center for Indio to bang out some remarkable creations. This amounted to me taping paper onto the wall and handing him a stack of crayons, chalk and pens. On top of the paper I taped a few index cards for portable creations I could send out to his great-grandma and far-away relatives.

He scribbled a bit; he tested the boundaries of the paper vs. the wall, all the while watching me for indications that he was in trouble; he pulled off the paper and shoved the index card in his mouth. Three times. This is why we don't have nice things.

Inspiration

Perhaps it was because both of my parents were teachers and trained in the art of molding young minds, but I realize more and more that my parents were evil geniuses. Okay, 'evil' is a bit much...just geniuses. I'll leave how they tricked us into doing their bidding for another post, but today I wanted to focus on a recent epiphany: growing up my parents fostered an inspirational environment.

Mostly, we had inspirational artwork around the house, like the Chief Seattle quote "Humankind has not woven the web of life.  We are but one thread within it.  Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. " that hung above the office desk. Right outside the office, in the hallway, hung a framed and signed "All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten" poster that prescribed simple instructions for living a better life at all ages*. Beyond print, my dad was particularly fond of doling out healthy helpings of Vince Lombardi quotes to completion**. So looking around our house, I realize we have no verbally inspirational art whatsoever. Perhaps we need to change that.

I've taken the liberty of rounding up some inspiration, and some less-than-subtle-reminders, to be a better person each day:



*This piece was particularly pertinent as my mom was a kindergarten teacher for over 30 years and an awesome one at that.
** My dad could recite Lombardi like geeks enumerate pi to 20 digits. "Leaders are made, they are not born." Most would stop here, but not my dad, he would continue to the meat of the quote, which I know was totally lost on me, until now: "They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile."

Our Artist and His Methods

A few Sundays back Indio and I were doing the usual Sunday routine: listening to music, getting everything out of the front closet, scribbling on Post-it notes...you know, the usual. Out of nowhere Indio went and changed it up on me and stuck a pencil in his mouth and proceeded to continue scribbling on his Post-it. I made a few lame attempts to get him to take it out of his mouth - it seemed like the responsible parent thing to do. Then I worried about stifling his creativity, so I reversed course, took out the camera and tried to discretely tape it.



The following is the result of his new-found method, though I would venture to guess most of this was by hand. My favorite part, which I didn't capture on film, is that he picked up his work and licked it. As a proud momma I'm just going to tell myself that was his way of signing the piece, but based on past history and current circumstance the reality is we have a toddler*.
*Toddlers naturally lick anything and everything - like paper and spilled liquids on the floor. It would amaze you how you have to teach a child how to be less gross.