Yeah, that's about right

Frilly pink dresses, butterfly wings, and an ATV. That's what little girls are made of.

For BIG mistakes

There is a story that has become legend in my family. One afternoon, almost 40 years ago, my sister was supposed to be taking a nap. She got out the crayons instead. She then proceeded to draw a mural on the wall, as high as she could reach, and as long as the bed was wide. (Ah, but she'd "stayed in bed," right?) Given that this was in a rented apartment, this was a problem. You can't just paint over crayon — it acts as a resist — it has to be removed. So my parents picked up an eraser, and for the next several weeks (perhaps even months) my sister would have to sit there, every day, working away at the crayon marks until they were all done.

I have seen this eraser. It's about four inches across, and about eight inches long, and aside from a very worn corner, what stands out most is the print on the side: FOR BIG MISTAKES.

* * *

I've been discovering crayon marks on the walls again. We've got the oldest of our young artists paper-trained, but Risanna has been taking an interest in the arts as well.

Yes, baby! PAPER! Paper is a good place to draw!

The marks on the walls and cabinets remain, though. So today, Deborah brought home an eraser...

Yep! Same thing, 35+ years later!

Isn't it great that such things can continue from generation to generation?

The Starting Block

Back in college, I was given a large block of balsa wood as a birthday present. I couldn't decide what to carve out out it, so I made a little sign that said "Potential" and set it on my desk where I could see it. I think the reminder did more for getting me through my classes than anything I could have made out of it.

In a Pine Car Derby, everyone gets either a wedge or a block of pine. You have to use it in your car; you can't substitute another piece of wood. You can add to it, you can subtract from it, but you have to use the block that came in your kit.

I put a fair amount of effort and creativity into Fiona's car, so it was a real treat to get to race day. A big part of the fun is getting to see what everyone else came up with. Given that everyone starts with virtually the same block of wood, the creativity is amazing.

Moooooooo. Come to think of it, this isn't all that unusual. I've seen a local limo with this theme, complete with fiberglass cow on top...

Wiiiiiiiiiii!

If it looks like that front wheel is floating in the air — it is. Having only three wheels on the track is apparently a common speed trick, and this fire engine definitely was speedy. Hmmm. Three wheels. I'm envisioning a motorcycle with sidecar for next year....

This is the car that won the races. The wheels are the standard wheels that come with the kit, but they've been turned on a lathe to get the lenticular shape, and polished with a molybdenum-graphite blend, which gives it a characteristic silver color.

Did I mention this was at church? In addition to the Golden Rule here, there was an entry named, "Faith, Hope, and Praise" which somehow reminds me of the buses in Latin America with Bible verses painted all over them.

One other observation on this golden rule(r): with weight placement being so crucial, it helps to have a design that has an obvious front and rear. Several such designs got run both ways down the track by unaware officials.

Coooool. I think the "engines" here are actually bullet tips. Weight and style!

Cheese Whiz!

Fast food. This meals-on-wheels entry got one of the top honors in the "Originality" category. It was fast, too!

Next up: Let's Go Racing!

Training Up Your Children in the Way that They Should Go

I'm blogging just like like Daddy!

Shift-option-command... rats, now I can't reach the other key I need!

Fiona's Picture Place

Fiona draws constantly. And, frankly, some of these drawings are too good not to share. To that end, Fiona now has her own blog:

http://fiona-art.blogspot.com

I've got a whole stack of drawings to scan and share, although I have no hope whatsoever of keeping up with her prolific and prodigious output. Go, bookmark, and enjoy.

Huh?

Fiona brought home this paper the other night. I'm... confused. Someone expain this to me?

What are they teaching kids in Sunday School these days?

My Kid Could Paint That

At the insistence of a number of people, we rented My Kid Could Paint That. The odd thing is that it's a documentary: A four-year old girl created abstract paintings on the kitchen table that sell for tens of thousands of dollars. The ambiguity is: did she really?

The movie is really more about art and adults, and the stupid things they do to each other, but there was a lot that resonated with me as an artist — particularly the frustration of the parents to prove to everyone that Marla really did do all the paintings herself. The work that gets captured on camera seems like the work of a normal four-year-old; a start-to-finish video of a complete painting is criticized for not being as "polished" as other works. Watching this, I could see why. Would I produce a great opus on a red canvas in a dreary basement while NBC secretly filmed me, and someone was egging me on to do something great? Probably not.

Even under ideal circumstances, I don't sit down and knock out a great book cover every time. Some of them stink. Some, I get no inspiration. Some, I start, and find something more interesting along the way. (Those are fun.) And some of them are good. The expectation that Marla produce an outstanding work every time is frankly unrealistic. I'll reveal some of my own bias here: I think some of those paintings look way too good. But most of them, the vast majority, I think she did.

My sister-in-law, Sara, was inspired by the film, and got out a canvas and paints for her son.

If you ever come across the works of Galahad Grey Gove in the future... that's his real name. But, like every other artist that ever made it big, it's all about the marketing. So. You saw it here first...

Sneaky Parenting

The battle to wean Fiona from her pacifier continues, but we've gotten sneakier about it.

Once I realized that pacifiers could be used as motivation, as well as, uh, pacification, whole new worlds opened up. (Credit here goes to our occasional babysitter, Stephanie, who is clever about such things.) Now, getting Fiona to settle down at bedtime is easy. Take for instance, the conversation we had tonight:

F: Hey, where's my pacifier? It was right here!
A: I took it.
F: But I want it!
A: What do you need to do to get it?
F: Be quiet for... oh... five minutes...
A: Let's try twenty.
F: How about THIRTY?
A: (grinning in the dark) Oh, OK. Deal! Thirty minutes.

Isn't it great when you find a solution everyone's happy with?

If She Washes Your Bike, Marry Her

Wash my bike? Pshaw. I have a team of cute girls in pink swimsuits to do that for me!

The average age of these hotties is 18.

There's a saying among motorcyclists: "If she washes your bike, marry her." Deborah trains Fiona in the proper technique...

The Incredible, Edible Letter G: Three Thoughts on Learning to Read

While we were on the way home from our small group last night, several people started singing the alphabet song. They did so in various keys, rhythms, and meters, and largely without regard for harmony or unison with anyone else. So it took a few minutes to catch on to what they were singing:

a, b, c, d, e, f, EGG!, h, i, j, k, elemeno, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z!

Eggs appeared consistently after F, but in subsequent performances, squares, houses, and big rigs started appearing throughout the alphabet. By the time we got home, the alphabet was so surreal that the kids could barely sing it for laughing.

***

I was making my lunch this morning, and discussing the magnetic letters on the fridge with Fiona. She was sounding out the letters, and then, with this bright look of amazement, put all the sounds together, and said, "Andy? It says Andy???" I wasn't the one who had put it there, but I was still pleased that my own name was the first thing she had read. (At least as far as I know. Deborah may know differently!) That shining look of wonder just made my day.

***

Fiona keeps asking me to read my cuneiform mug whenever I use it, but I'm afraid I'm not much help... that dawn of comprehension hasn't come over me yet. I should at least memorize the pronunciation of the Akkadian text, even if I never learn to read it properly.

An Early Inheritance

I love Legos. I got my first set sometime when I was four or five, and I have been adding to my collection by one means or another ever since, whether receiving them as gifts, buying them conventionally, through BrickLink, eBay, and yard sales, from purchasing a single piece to complete a project to buying smeone else's entire collection.

Needless to say, I have a bunch.

That's about 65 pounds of Legos. The under-bed storage container barely fits them.

But I have another problem — two small children, whom I also want to learn the joys of Lego. Do I turn them loose in my collection? I can't see that being a good idea right now. Do I just buy them their own? It's a good idea, but Legos are, quite frankly, expensive. (Whoever bought me that first set when I was young, I think, made a pretty serious investment.) Finally the answer came to me in the form of a 200-piece beginner's set that had been given to me on a recent birthday — maybe I could just separate out part of my collection, and share that.

It took a few nights of sitting there sorting through pieces as Deborah quilted and we listened to an audio book, but I finally had sorted out about 500 pieces that I thought would be appropriate for a Fiona. As I sorted, I noticed that a lot of the pieces I was choosing were ones from that very first set I had. I also made sure to include some of those pieces that I'd wished I had back when I was that age.

Her first words were, "Hey, there's a LOT of pieces!

The acid test then, was to see if Fiona thought I had chosen well. Judging from her reaction, I think I did. The effort to separate out all the slanting roof pieces was immediately redeemed when she said, "Let's build a house!"

The house that Fiona and Andy built. A surprisingly modern structure with a double-hip roof, skylights, slanting walls...

...and a big-screen TV on the roof. Who am I to argue? The blue pieces around the house are ponds, according to Fiona. I was about to suggest to Fiona that ponds aren't normally get that close to the house, but then I remembered that we'd only just gotten rid of the ponds that were closer than that to our own, real house.

And then Jesus said, "Ribbit."

During the school year, we go to a small group Bible study, and drop Fiona and Aiden off at the church gym for activities there. At the end of the year, they had a "Fun Fair" with activities for both parents and children to enjoy together, and awards for things like best attendance.

While we were there sitting together on the floor during the presentations, Fiona got out the foam cross she had decorated at one of the stations, and some plastic animals she had won in a game. "Look!" she said, hopping an armadillo up to the middle of the cross, "here's a cross for this frog to die on!"

Yeah.

What do you say then?

On the bright side, the message is getting through, although not quite in the form I would had hoped for!

How to pet a cat

This is the right way to pet a cat.

This is not the right way to pet a cat.