Tuesday, January 4, 2011

A Budding Artist

Last weekend, Christopher (my 4-year-old) asked me to play a game. He said he was going to draw something and I had to guess what it was. Since he has the usual drawing skills of a boy his age, I was obviously a little nervous. Aside from a better-than-I-could-draw sailboat last week, his drawings usually require translation.

So he made his first drawing on a magnet board (think Etch-a-Sketch with a pen instead of knobs), and turned it around toward me. It looked like a bunch of random marks. He said "Guess what dinosaur this is, Mommy."

Whew! A hint! I thought about all the dinosaurs that he knew, and I said "A brontosaurus."

"That's right!" he said.

After a quick erase and a few more strokes of the pen, he said "Here's the next one" and turned the board around.

"Hmmm...a triceratops?"

"YAY! Good job Mommy!"

Cool. This was going to be easier than I thought.

Again, he drew. Again, he turned the board around and asked me what it was. Thinking of the dinosaurs in recent conversation, I said "A pterodactyl?"

"Nope."

"A Tyrannosaurus Rex?"

"Nope."

Uh oh...running out of dinosaurs. I couldn't tell at all what the drawing was, so I decided to be funny. "A Christopher-saurus?"

<laughs> "No, Mommy!"

"A Mommy-saurus?" "A Daddy-saurus?"

He's getting annoyed now. "No, Mom."

I'm starting to feel guilty. How can I tell him that I can't tell what his drawing is?

"Okay, I give up. What kind of dinosaur is it?"

"It's not a dinosaur, Mommy. It's a scribble."

Leave it to my kid to be practical.

1 comment:

Leigh said...

That was great!! Made me laff out loud! And who says kids aren't smart!