Drawing

I keep lots of Ella's artworks, but as she does more and more of it at school and daycare, I must say that some of them don't even get a proper look but end up straight in the recycling. I'm talking about tissue boxes with paddle pop sticks glued to them or pages with a couple of lines of paint in a non-descript colour.

But I love Ella's drawings. And especially her drawings of animals. The detail in them is quite striking. Without anyone showing her how to draw these, she has a talent for depicting the one or two characteristics that make them immediately recognisable. Which to be honest, is already more than I manage to achieve usually.

Like the jelly fish in this one. (And the cat is probably better than the ones I draw!)


The duck is also a classic example. I adore it's simplicity and those big feet.



Note the "fairy mermaids" in the above pictures. They used to resemble her barbie mermaid when she started copying that onto paper which I thought was rather clever. But I'll leave it up to your imagination to decide what these more stylised versions she tends to draw these days resemble.

The bat (the finished one) would be amongst my faves too. I doubt she's ever seen a picture of a bat, but this has such a cartoon quality about it. This is the bookmark she made for when we read her chapter books every night. There are no bats in the book...



But this is my absolute favourite! I found it in her pigeon hole at daycare and my reaction was (quite genuine too): "Oh, what beautiful cats!" To which she responded immediately: "Mu-um! They're not cats! They're flying foxes!" after which she pointed out the tiny wings on their necks or backs. Hahaha! I love their fluffy feet too. They're delightfully surreal.



As she has always loved drawing, I have bought books on teaching kids how to draw. It explains step by step how to draw a cat, a horse, a boat... But I am very reluctant to use them as I am enjoying this phase of her drawing way too much and don't want it to ever change!

Caught out

I was 3 minutes late dropping Ella off at school this morning, so all the kids were already sitting down on the floor listening to the teacher reading them a book. Ella quickly went to sit down at the back of the group while I re-tied her pony tail.

As I was doing that the teacher - who was reading a book about a pigeon - said: "He was the kind of pigeon who would sulk and pout if he didn't get what he wanted. Do you ever do that, sulk and pout when you don't get what you want?"

And one lonely voice said - without any hesitation or doubt: "No."

It was Ella's and of course I couldn't control the laugh that escaped my throat. The teacher and assistant laughed too and Ella got all embarassed saying "mu-um!" so I had to apologise for laughing.

It was just so funny that she would be the only one in the group to deny ever sulking, being the only one with her mother there right behind her!

A new level of mean

I'm sure I'm not the only parent who despairs at their kids - at least those who have learnt to adequately express themselves and who show some ability to think rationally - apparently considering crying as an adequate response to any problem they encounter. It drives me nuts sometimes! And I have less and less patience for it as Ella grows older.

When I found Ella in tears last night when I returned from doing something outside, I first thought something "serious" had happened. Something that I should have been there for, right near her. You can hear the guilt process starting, can't you. So when I finally managed to decipher her sob-soaked explanation and realised that she was only crying because the computer she was playing a game on "did something wrong", I was NOT happy. I quickly decided that for once I did not want to resort to speaking angrily, or yet again trying to explain to her that crying never fixes anything, that every problem has a solution and that crying prevents us from thinking straight and therefor coming up with an effective course of action; only for her to then defend herself with the standard "but I forgot". No, it was time again for a dose of sarcasm. Not in the least because it makes ME feel better.

So my response to Ella's crying over her computer game disappearing was to say - in a sugar-sweet voice: "Oh! Did the naughty computer make you cry? I can fix that right away". I walked over to the computer, sat down and... switched it off. "There, the naughty computer has gone to sleep and can not make you cry anymore."

I must say that the reaction I got from her was not as strong as I'd expected. I think she was too stunned. I also believe that - after initially thinking that I really totally misunderstood her (oh how ignorant grown-ups can be!) - she recognised my twisted version of the natural consequences tactic.

The end does justify the means sometimes. With the stress on mean mum.

Yes we can!

Ella can ride a bike...



And I can knit...

Phew!

Me - Did you check the freezer door to find an icy pole?
Ella - No icy poles here, mum. Mum, I'm thirsty. And there's a bottle of frozen water here. I'm going to drink some nice cold water.
Me - NO! That's vodka!

Random conversations

Me - I can't do that that fast, Ella. I'm not a machine!
Ella - Oh, but I wish you could turn into a machine!

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Ella - Mum?
Me - Yes, Ella.
Ella - I can't decide who I'm gonna marry.
Me - That's ok. You're way too young to marry anyway.
Ella - But you'll have to write it up. (she means 'write down', it's a Dutch-ism)
Me - Write down what?
Ella - Who I'm gonna marry. So you can read it, no I can read it when I'm growed up so I know who I'm gonna marry.
Me - You don't have to decide now, you know. Why don't you just decide when you're old enough to marry? Is that a good idea?
Ella - Ok.

Princess emancipation

This morning when I dropped Ella off at daycare, we spotted the new puppets that had just arrived. There were the usual suspects: princess, prince, dragon, knight...

Ella picked up the princess, so I picked up the dragon and made it say: "I'm going to eat you, princess!". Next I picked up the prince and said: "I'll save you princess."

To which Ella casually replied: "You don't need to." and carried the princess a safe distance away from both dragon and prince.

Go girl! I am pretty sure this was somehow related to Enid Blyton's Faraway Tree books that we're reading at the moment. I felt obliged to have a talk to her about the constant mention of the girls needing to be looked after by the boys. Even if the boys are younger than them. I tried to explain to Ella that the book was old-fashioned and that we of course know that girls can look after themselves just as well as boys can. I'm glad she embraced that thought and doesn't get influenced by the stereotypical view of girls/women being the weaker sex!