Artsy Fartsy (as my dad would say)

I'll admit that when the Salad was born, my slight OCD tendencies turned into full blown OCD tendencies.  I needed order.  I ran this house like a military base for 19 months. 

Then, one day when the Salad was 19 months old, I spotted Halloween stickers at the Acme, threw a pack of construction paper into our cart and ran home to make art with my babies. 

Thus began our love affair with art.

At first, I tried to impress those full blown OCD tendencies onto my toddlers.  I wanted the matching cap to go on the appropriate marker.  I wanted pumpkins to be round, skies to be blue, faces to have noses.   Perhaps through shear exhaustion, those OCD tendencies began to fade.  Now, I delight in square fruit, purple suns and the many, many pictures of our loved ones, sans facial features.  So long as there is a lid on a marker, I could care less what color it is.  In fact, if we should get so lucky to find a blue marker with an orange cap I can't grab the color wheel fast enough.  Talk about teachable moments!  Complementary colors at their finest!

3 years after those first Salad-made Halloween cards were created, we make some kind of art every day. For the last 2 years they have had any craft supply they would like to use at their disposal 24 hours a day. So long as they keep it in the preschool room, they are free to create what they want, whenever they want. Most mornings, they head straight there before they even come into my room.  Yes, it makes for a crazy messy preschool room. So should you ever visit and the door to the left at the top of the steps is closed, please leave it closed. And poor R may step on beads every morning for the next few years when he enters the room. And many times I have left the house trailing a piece of scotch tape on my shoe, unbeknownst to me.  These are small prices to pay for a Salad that loves to create.

Here is a one side of a conversation that I have had 547 times in the last 3 years. 

"Oh, wow (insert Salad ingredient here)!  Tell me, who did you draw?  . . . . Uh huh.  And what is this mark right here? . . . . Oh really?  Poop, huh?  . . . . and those are what again?  Privates.  Of course.  I should have known.  What's this dot above the privates?  Right!  Right.  Well, everyone has a belly button." 

Thank God I've eased up some. 

Otherwise, their bedroom door would be just that.  A door.  Rather than the gallery it is today.

Otherwise, I'd never have stumbled into this "Robot Army" one morning not too long ago.

Otherwise, I'd never have heard S give me this description of a picture she drew "It's you and I trick or treating.  I'm a ballerina and you are a potato.  And these buttons I glued on are our candy."