Artist

From the time C could just barely coordinate herself enough to limply hold a wedge of avocado (her first food because she wasn't about to actually let us feed her anything on a spoon--very willful, this one) I tried to get her excited about crayons and chalk and paint and markers and the myriad crafting supplies to which she will have ready access her whole life because it is piled up so high in my basement. It took a while for her to get the hang of it, but she's made leaps and bounds with our kitchen chalk board and the crayons. We got our first picture sent home from day care the other day, and I was so excited I could hardly stand it.

While we were waiting for her motor skills to catch up with what I naturally assumed was her heart's true desire (artist expression), I bought her finger paints in the hopes that it would be easier for her to get busy on the canvas. Try as I did, she never ever liked to use them. Sure, she liked to get set up to finger paint. She enjoyed watching me lay out the newspaper and then the paper to paint on. She liked getting down to her skivvies, and she liked watching me squirt the paints out onto the paper plate I was using as a palette. What she didn't like was actually touching the paints, and she certainly didn't like using them, declaring "Messy," after dipping just the tiniest portion of one finger in.

Until last week, that is, when she finally figured out what fun it was. We made a card for my dad's 60th birthday, but we still haven't mailed it because I just can't part with these early artistic expressions.