Because I Never Save My Children's Art

I am a very mean mom. I have a rule--a rule I rarely break--that I never draw for my kids. If I do, they spend the rest of the day whining about how they "just can't do it, Mommy!"

But the truth is, they can. Ashley and Everett love to draw. It is fun to see them cooperating and making up stories as they go wild with the markers, and it is fun to see the final product they are so proud of. If I do it for them, they don't figure it out on their own and they miss out on that feeling of pride.

Since we're about to move (we don't know where yet, FYI), I know I'm going to toss out the notebooks they've spent the better part of a year filling up. Maybe I should keep them; I don't know. But I figure I should take some pictures of some of their very first drawings.

And you know what this means, don't you? It means that I fill up a blog post with pictures of random squiggles (read: abandon reading this now and go do something useful with your time).

First we'll start with Ashley. I can very easily tell the difference between her squiggles and Everett's. She is precise in her drawing and patient enough to fill up a whole page:

Sometimes it looks like she's writing sentences (this is obviously not her intention).

Sometimes she draws shapes along with the scribbles, but they all look about the same.

She really enjoys filling up coloring book pages and actually attempts to color in the pictures.

One of her favorite things to do is draw circle up on circle upon circle. She squeals and laughs as she does it. "Gircle! Gircle! Mommy, Gircle!"

But sometimes she tries to copy Everett and make pictures similar to his.

Now for Everett. His pictures are more interesting, and most of the time there is some story that goes along with them which he eagerly shares with me.

His pages are filled with monsters:

(red marks courtesy of Ashley)

. . .and more monsters,

and even more monsters ravenously coming after our family (see figure with sharp teeth and long legs, the one that is falling into the "water"). I can never tell our family figures apart, but Everett knows exactly who is who.

. . .Oh. And monsters attacking people in boats.

And we can't forget aliens and rocket ships, complete with "fire coming out the bottom, Mommy!"

There are also plenty of random animals with a gajillion legs.

Pictures of Everett going down a slide are also common.

Everett also draws random letters.

Mostly he draws letters in his name or the letters on buildings in our complex. He always gets bored and adds a few people in the mix.

Or extra "legs" on all the E's.

And then, well, there are these:

These are the pages that make me scratch my head. I can never figure these out, and to be honest, Everett usually can't after the fact, either. He thinks this one has something to do with apples and worms, but it seemed like he was pulling explanations out of thin air.

Well, there you have it. "Art" by Everett and Ashley. At least now I can clean out our notebooks and coloring books and not suffer from a guilt complex. It's just too bad I subjected you to the minutiae of it all, isn't it?

(yes, they are at least wearing pants/diapers/underwear)

"Markers, please!"