Art Imitates Life

The great artists always painted with their own distinct styles. You can tell a DaVinci from a Picasso pretty easily. My kids, too, paint with their personalities. Emma tends to be a realist and a pretty good one too. At her age all her Daddy could draw was “Will toaster and Daddy toaster” you can imagine how exciting that was, two squares with arms and legs. Emma, on the other hand, likes to draw princesses and Veggie Tales characters. Her princesses are long and willowy with hair that would make Brooke Shields envious, and her vegetable characters are amazingly accurate. She likes to draw it “right” as she says. For her, realism is everything, it has to look exactly like what she intended it to be. With Emma’s paintings you never have to say “Oh that’s beautiful. What is it?” Her drawings are, and I say this as a very proud mother, amazing and I think we had better be looking for art lessons rather than ballet classes. She is a realist in real life too. She was hanging out her second story window last night and I chided her telling her that she could fall out. She said, “Its ok mom, I’ll just use my umbrella and float down like Bugs Bunny”. We always have to clarify that cartoons are NOT real and just because the Road Runner can order a space ship in the mail, and strap rockets to his roller skates doesn’t mean that we can too. At Disney World she was crushed to realize that “Story Time with Belle” didn’t mean you actually got to go climb up on her lap and have one-on-one story time. She was devastated when she found herself pushed to the back of a herd of 50 plus whiny preschoolers and overbearing parents straining just for a glimpse of a lip-syncing college student in a costume. When “Belle” stood up to leave Emma jumped on her seat and screamed at the top of her lungs “Belle, it’s me, Emma” as if watching the movie 100 times made her an intimate acquaintance.

Emma's Larry the Cucumber and Friends

A Rose

Eli’s art, well, hmmmm, Eli is a minimalist with tendencies toward cubism. He lacks the ability of his sister but then she has two years of fine motor skills development on him, but I think his talent will always lie in other areas. This is not to say that his creations are any less lacking in originality or personality than his sisters’. His paintings are sparse and to the point, as if getting his message across with as little expenditure of time, paint, and effort is part of the creative process. I am attaching a family portrait that he recently did in school. I’m not sure who is who but you get the general drift. In a recent assignment at Christmastime he was told to paint a Christmas tree. All of the other children’s paintings had wild swirls of green flecked all over with squiggles and dots to represent ornaments. Some children just abandoned the paint brush all together and resorted to finger painting, not Eli! His tree was the simplest representation he could think of: one long green line for the trunk and eleven shorter lines for the limbs growing out to one side. I guess that it was redundant to put limbs on both sides of the tree when one knows perfectly well how the branches of a tree grow. Why bother to draw what one can extrapolate? His decorations are on the minimalist side as well; a single silver dot at the end of each branch. Now if I can only get him to be a minimalist about his trains as well!

Eli's Christmas Tree

Eli's Family Portrait

Ethan is still growing into his artistic personality, but right now he is experimenting with murals and various artistic mediums, such as water, cereal, peanut butter and melted chocolate. Because of his current fascination with life sized art his canvases have become walls, tables, chairs and floors and so a suitable example is hard to show on something as small as this screen, although I can see the remainder of a recent work on my computer screen as I type. Ethan also believes that creativity can also be expressed not just through the creation of something but that creativity can be expressed in the destruction of an object. For example just in the writing of this entry Ethan has successfully destroyed all but one of the art projects that you see here (thank goodness I scanned them when I did). Ethan also enjoys making himself the canvass, using his body as an expression of his creativity. His preferred mediums for this expression include permanent marker, ink, crayon, peanut butter, melted chocolate and spaghetti. We find it fascinating that at such a young age he is able to combine his two loves, food and exploration into such an artistic reference. We are sure that as he develops as an artist he will find many new and exciting ways of expressing himself.

War Paint

Those of you that know me well will know that I am my father's daughter. I love to organize, I love to alphabetize, and most of all I love to make lists. I have been known to make lists of my lists. I have been known to make lists of things that have already been accomplished just for the pure joy of crossing everything off. To illustrate our lifestyle while fulfilling my list quota for the day, I have compiled several lists for you all to enjoy. Hope these shed some light onto life with an almost-two-year old!

A descriptive list of all the things that Ethan has eaten, destroyed, ingested, broken, spilled, spoiled or in any other way ruined in the past six weeks:

A container of margarine…half eaten the other half smeared on the leather furniture and the rug

Several boxes of cereal….eaten, then the remaining contents dumped onto the floor and rug

A container of cumin….rubbed thoroughly into his hair

A container of dried ginger….ground into the rug

A bag of raisins (imported from the US)…dumped into the ginger which was ground into the rug

A box of sugar cubes…eaten…all of them except what was ground into the rug

A container of cookies…eaten…all of them except what was ground into the rug

A bunch of bananas…eaten mostly and what was left ground into the rug and the peals hidden in various parts of the furniture until they could be located only by their smell

The DVD/VCR player…the VCR side was filled with refrigerator magnets and the DVD player with melted chocolate cookies (fortunately Will was able to salvage it)

The TV/DVD/VCR….the VCR was filled with his sisters hair barrettes and bands, the DVD player with…chocolate cookies

Most things in that come in cardboard containers which are kept in the cabinet…this was accomplished while repeatedly filling an empty two liter bottle with water at the sink and dumping the water all over the counter, cabinets, kitchen floor, hallway, rug, bathroom, dining room floor, Elijah and Emma

A Rubbermaid container of left-over spaghetti…completely ingested, except for what was rubbed into his hair, clothing and of course the rug

Three bars of dark chocolate used for cooking…eaten and then the melted residue on his hands wiped all over the audio/visual equipment

Two cereal bowls…broken on the kitchen floor

Three glasses…broken on the kitchen floor

One plate…broken on the kitchen floor

Two juice glasses…broken on the kitchen floor

Disabled the furnace…this was done after he had locked himself in the basement

Turned off the hot water…also while in the basement

Large hole found dug in the unfinished side of the basement….while in the basement

A toilet paper holder….ruined while being used as a shovel to dig the hole in the basement

Half a jar of peanut butter….eaten, then the spoon used to scoop it out hidden under the couch and subsequently stuck to the rug

A 20 oz container of Nesquick dry chocolate milk mix (imported from the US)…dumped on the rug

Culinary discoveries that Ethan has made in the last six weeks (most of these discoveries were made after the entire object was consumed):

Bathroom cleaner does not taste good
Spray starch does not taste good
Leather furniture does not taste good
Grubs do not taste good
Ladybugs do not taste good
Flies do not taste good
Ants do not taste good
Licking the rug does not taste good
Sucking on the balcony railing does not taste good
Diaper wipes do not taste good
Bleach wipes do not taste good
The wax that the cheese comes wrapped in does not taste good
Bread still in the plastic bag does not taste good
Kiwi fruit still with the fuzzy skin does not taste good
Crayons do not taste good
Markers do not taste good
Colored pencils do not taste good
Watercolors do not taste good
Acrylic paint does not taste good
Glitter glue does not taste good
Pastels do not taste good
Emma’s art projects do not taste good
Water drunk out of the lid of the hair gel container does not taste good
Hair gel does not taste good
The rubber tires off his brother’s toy cars do not taste good
The sticker decals on his brother’s toy cars do not taste good
Vicks does not taste good
Chap stick does not taste good
Vaseline does not taste good
Used tea bags out of the trash can do not taste good
Anything out of the trash can does not taste good
Toilet bowl brushes do not taste good
Dried cumin does not taste good
Dried ginger does not taste good

Top ten rules of the Maxson house:

10. Always remove the rubber tires from any new toy car
9. Always lock the front door (Ethan escapes)
8. Always lock the gate (Ethan escapes)
7. Always lock the bathroom door
6. Always lock the basement door
5. Always lock the computer
4. Always put the rubber bands back on the cabinet doors
3. Always make sure any consumable item is kept sealed in plastic bags (which Ethan can’t open, yet) and kept higher than four feet from the floor
2. Always place spill-able liquids higher than four feet from the floor
1. Always bungee cord the chairs back together around the table when you are done eating

We don't call him Captain Destructo for nothing!