D is for Drawing

My three-year-old daughter, Jadzia, has always enjoyed putting crayon to paper. She has recently become more prolific and also more able draw stuff that looks like something.  Below are a few of my favourites.

 Elephants are probably Jadzia's favourite animal to draw. This one is standing on a Mr. Potatohead and a pretty bow.

This is a wooly sheep.

My husband feeding the ducks. She used to draw arms and legs sticking out of a head, but as you can see her people now have bodies. And this actually looks like my husband.  Also, if you look closely you'll note he is holding some bread to feed the duck with.

Pig.

This is our family standing by our fridge, while our friends Columbia and Garrett hang out with our dog Worf. Columbia even brought popcorn!

Here's another picture of Columbia, which she uses as her facebook profile.  It really looks like her in an abstract way, because she is always smiling. That's the thing about Jadzia's portraits, they have childlike simplicity (of course) but at the same time somehow the people she draws are recognizable.

So as not to show favouritism, I'm also posting two of my son William's drawings below. William's art is more fantastical than Jadzia's, and most often involves laser guns, monsters, robots, and aliens. His style is similar to mine in that way and I'm delighted that his taste seems to lean toward Sci Fi.  He's not as prolific with creating, however, hence why I'm only posting two.

 The angry sun-like thing is actually a spiky monster.  At William's instruction, I added the lobster-clawed super hero shooting lasers from his eyes. Not sure what the other stuff in the picture represents, but it adds great atmosphere.

This is a robot that William drew in his reading response journal for school. I'm not sure why a book about farm animals prompted this particular response, but I find it delightful.

Lokai Filipowicz 2005-2008

It's been 2 years since the passing of his brother, Bele, who, annoyed by Lokai's laid-back attitude, used to chase him around the cage and bite his bum. When Bele died I was pregnant with William, perhaps that pregnancy and this one sent out airborn hormones that are harmful to Guinea Pigs. Someone should really do a study.

Yesterday, William wanted to play with Lokai, but I was busy doing laundry and told him "another time". Now there will be no other time.

I filled up Lokai's dish yesterday and noted that the bag of food was almost empty, but I forgot to buy more. Now I don't need to, so I guess that's good. In fact, Lokai's death solves a problem. We have been trying to give him away to a good home. We haven't been able to give him the attention we should, and I knew it would only get worse when baby #2 came along. Lokai has always been so robust and healthy-looking that I was sure that he would live at least another year, and that he could make some other owner very happy.

I'm a terrible pet-owner, that much is clear. When I saw that he was dead, part of me thought "oh good, no more cage-cleaning", and that made me feel even worse. Lokai was a good pig. He deserved better.

Morty "the Jackapoo" McNicoll vs. the Filipowicz Family

Yesterday William and I were dog-sitting. My parents are in BC and Morty the Jackapoo came over so he didn't have to stay in the crate all day while my brother was at work.

Morty (4lbs) vs. Lokai (2lbs)

About 3 seconds after my husband left for work, leaving me alone with baby and puppy, Morty found our smallest, often forgotten family member. Yes, that's right, Lokai the Guinea Pig. I yelled "down!" at him enough times that Morty understood that he wasn't supposed to look at the pig, bark at the pig, or jump on the pig's cage. So he only did those things when I was out of the room. Lokai was pretty laid back about the whole issue. He gave more squeaks of protest when I put the lid on his cage (something I haven't needed to do in about a year), than squeaks of fear at the attacking pooch. Of course even if Morty had been able to get in the cage, I think Lokai could probably take him in a fair fight. In any case, no family members were eaten.

Morty (4lbs) vs. William (16lbs)

But some were tasted. Everytime William got anywhere near the floor, Morty would run from wherever he was and lick the baby's face. William wasn't sure if he like this at first, but eventually decided he didn't and made pouty faces when Morty came near. William likes to stand on the floor while I hold his hands, and he didn't get to do a whole lot of that yesterday. Funny thing, next to William, Morty looks like a full-sized dog.

A Test of Baby Proofing.

One good part of having Morty here is that the little guy finds and chews on things that maybe William will find and chew on when he becomes more mobile. Most of our baby proofing will involve cleaning up and vacuuming more often.