Soren the Artist

Like most kids, my kids (especially Synnove) love to make pictures and cards...hundreds of them! To be honest, it can be exhausting getting all of those papers with a few scribbles. Synnove isn't known to take her time on any drawing, and her coloring often starts out nice and turns to scribbles because she just wants done with it. I try to emphasize that I want them to take their time and make something worthy of the fridge (not in those exact words). Plus, they are expert paper wasters...am I supposed to be happy that I have umpteen clean white sheets of paper with the same one-color stick figure on them?

I suppose Synnove is really the main culprit when it comes to the mountain of papers I have to find places for. After a month of sitting in a pile on the counter, they secretly make their way to the recycling bin. Of course, I save the seemingly extra special ones. You know...the ones that the kids bring to you with thoughtfulness and a big smile on their face?

Soren isn't much of a draw-er or color-er. It's not that he doesn't do well at it, it's just something he doesn't love to do. I very much enjoy getting Soren's papers from Sunday school and preschool. I can really tell that he likes to take his time to get everything right. His serious and methodical nature shines in his artwork. When he started preschool in September, he was still struggling to hold the marker or crayon correctly. In fact, he held it in a way that made it nearly impossible for him to apply enough pressure to make a mark. Though it was difficult, he would take his time to stay in the lines and fill in the white space as well as he could. Watching him would warm my heart...still does. Since then, he's learned how to hold his crayon and has even learned to write his own name.

A few nights ago, the kids were downstairs making cards. Synnove had given Soren one of the blank greeting cards she had earned as a prize at school. When they came upstairs to present their cards, their faces were beaming. Synnove had made a nice card with scenery on it for me, and Soren had made a special one for Adam. Adam waited till we got to the dinner table to open his. And when he did Soren made sure to describe what he drew. He said something close to..."that's YOU dad! Those are the hairs on your tummy, and that's your stinky button!" See below...

We all laughed uncontrollably for several minutes! Soren wanted Adam to take his card to work so that he could show it to his coworkers. But Adam wanted to make sure it made it to the blog first :)