Scribble Monster

She loves to create. To scribble, color, paint.

She thinks glue and glitter and scissors and play dough are gifts from the gods.

When she paints she is oh so precise. She steps back from her easel and looks at the big picture and then adds more. She thoughtfully chooses her paints. She loves green, orange and blue together. She thinks purple, red and yellow make a statement. She smears and layers and creates.

Her markers and crayons create colorful chaos on paper after paper. Scenes of water and kitties and gorillas and boats - at least that's what she tells me. I usually see lopsided circles, squiggles and lines. Beautiful lopsided circles, squiggles and lines, nonetheless.

I take those endless, wonderful creations and hang them up. Her first finger paintings are in our basement, framed. Her favorite glue and sand project is a self in Daddy's office, right next to her first watercolor painting. Her creations from school and story time hang for a bit on a wall - adding a little color and fun to our horrifically bland kitchen and making me smile.

Last night she drew Andy a picture. She said it was piggy toes - he could see it and told her good job. Then she snatched her drawing stating it needed eyes. After a few minutes of concentrated drawing she proudly brought it back and said "See Daddy! Monster!"

And there it was...a monster. Not a scribble. Not a lopsided circle.

A perfect, beautiful monster.

C.R.A.Z.Y.

Crazy.

That is what I may be on the verge of going. Cincinnati is "closed" for yet another day, and I don't think I can handle being in my house too much longer. I assumed when the snow stopped yesterday by NOON that the land of the Nati would reopen today...but it hasn't. These past few days have confirmed that when I come out of retirement I am definitely heading back to the realm of education. In Cincinnati snow days are a reality, in Chicago they were an urban myth.

Today I am completely out of creative entertainment ideas for stinkerpotomus. Yesterday we played in the snow and baked cookies. Tuesday we played in the snow and finger painted. Today I have zero desire to play in the snow.

Wait, you are thinking to yourself, did she just say that she let Addison finger paint? Has she totally lost it?

The answers to those questions would be "yep" and "yeppers".

Tuesday, in between snow play, I set Addie up in the basement to do some finger painting. I taped a trash bag to the floor and a piece of cloth to that. I set out four paper plates with squirts of red, yellow, green and blue. I dressed my kiddo in non-nice clothes, and then, I let her loose. At first she wasn't so sure about this messy painting thing. She would dip her pointer finger in paint, scrutinize it, and then daintily dab it on the cloth. It was though she was afraid of getting dirty...which is a little bit amusing, since later that night when we had spaghetti and meatballs for dinner she was covered head to toe in marinara sauce and cheese and didn't seem to mind at all, but I digress.

After a few dainty touches of the paint she got a little more interested. Next thing I know she has her whole hand in the paints and is smearing a masterpiece across the cloth. She then decides to smear paint on her shirt. Then she decides she needs to get a better angle so she walks across the freshly painted cloth, making her socks awfully pretty. Suddenly she decides that she needs a better vantage point - you know she needs to understand where more color is needed or if she needs to add more depth to the overall visual effect - so she sat in the middle of the freshly painted cloth...hello, colorful baby behind.

By the time her first art project was done there was paint everywhere, thankfully Crayola means it when they say their finger paints are washable...otherwise I'd have a tie-dyed daughter. Her finished product is still sitting on the floor of the basement, and each time we've gone down there she has stopped to oooh and aaah over her work.

Eventually we will frame it and hang it in the house, probably under archival glass with gallery lighting, sectioned off with a velvet rope. Until then, it will keep the floor of the laundry room looking quite nice.

**After Addie's nap I finally did escape the house. Addie and I went out to lunch and Target with Grandma and Aunt Nikki. Even better, Aunt Nikki came over and played in the snow with Addison while Grandma and I watched warmly from the inside.