He's no Picasso

At Sawyer's 15-month check-up, our pediatrician asked me if Sawyer was coloring yet. This, of course, threw me into a fit. I had no idea kids were supposed to be coloring at that age - I mean, wouldn't he just eat the crayons and draw all over my walls? She promised that crayons are non-toxic and totally washable and specifically recommended the jumbo crayons. "One more thing," she added, "some kids are coloring book kids and some are plain paper kids. So make sure you have both."

While still recovering from the shock of having almost missed an important developmental milestone, I headed straight to Wal-Mart and bought the jumbo crayons and a jumbo-sized coloring book - figuring the larger the paper, the less likely he would draw on the rug, the table or the floor. Actually, I couldn't wait to get home and introduce Sawyer to the wonders of doodling, one of my personal favorite pastimes. The pages of my reporter's notebooks are filled with cartoon faces, flowers and big leafy vines winding between the words. And I have many fond memories of sitting at the foot of my parents' bed at night as a child, coloring carefully and lightly inside the lines of my coloring book while my dad read aloud from Anne of Green Gables. And the big question pressing on my mind was: Will he be an in the lines our outside the lines kinda kid? Will he prefer the blank canvas or the paint by numbers?

Sawyer immediately LOVED the crayons. And the crayon box. He took the crayons out. He put them back in. He took them all out. He put them all back in. Over and over. Meanwhile, I doodled all over his coloring book. I doodled all over the plain paper. He tasted some crayon. He somehow managed to draw a blue line all the way down the hallway when I wasn't looking. And then we moved on to something else.

Several months later, the novelty of organizing the crayons in the box still hadn't worn off. So I threw the box away and started storing the crayons in a larger container. Still - he was all about the PROCESS of removing and replacing the crayons in the box. All I'd done was take away the challenge of fitting so many crayons into such a small box. I'm convinced he knows what the crayons are for. Every once in a while he'll make a move like he is going to color. He'll scribble a line or two and then decide that the other game was more fun. Turns out, he's not a plain paper kid and he's not a color book kid. He's a crayon organizer. He'll be the kid that spends the entire art class socializing by the pencil sharpener.

I guess I have to let go of my dream of wallpapering the bathroom with children's art. Arden is my only hope - if I can just nurture her angst enough, I can envision her dressed all in black in some trendy loft space, drinking coffee in the wee hours of the morning and throwing herself into her latest "piece."