Notes to P

Dearest P, 
This is a chalk drawing you did of a duck.  Lately your art work is less wide brush strokes and mashing of paint colors and more of line drawings. You draw very distinct things with stories and events going on for every character you draw.  We're getting to the point where you dont have to tell me what you've drawn. It's pretty obvious.  


On 4th of July we went out to breakfast and you drew what we were going to do that evening.  It was a  picture of the four of us with Enzo, Elena, Tony and Karin all watching fireworks.  I wish I would have kept that drawing but I forgot it at the restaurant. Both Papa and I marveled at your work and clear understanding of the future.  


I love you P. I love your works of art. I have a huge stack of them in the office.  I'm not sure how many we'll be able to keep over the years but I wish I had a gallery to showcase each and every one of them.  


xoxo
Mama

Sister Drum

A semi-empty can of salt, dried lentils and decorative tape can make an excellent drum for a baby sister named Gemma.  Annika is incredibly thoughtful in the things she makes for Gemma or in always picking up two of everything: "One for me and one for Gemma. She can use it when she grows up".

Painting the Bump

 Two weekends ago we finally got around to painting my belly. I had talked about it with P and she was very eager to go to town.  But every afternoon was taken up by some other activity.  Fortunately, we did this when Dave was home so he took pictures.  It was a lot of fun to do. Mostly, it was a lot of fun watching P have fun with the process.  How often does one get to paint their Mama?  It was also another way of getting P involved with the process of her sister's arrival.

Easing My Guilt

 I've fallen into an after school routine with P for the last few weeks. She comes home from school, eats, naps, watches tv, eats, goes to bed.  It's so lame I can't stand it!  However, I'm giving myself a break because I'm at the end of my pregnancy and I'm exhausted and in pain.  

Today I hit 38 weeks and I seem to have gotten a second wind. I've been having contractions almost daily. In fact, this morning I woke up to them, but I've gotten myself to think of the pain as a good thing, and it is. It's better to feel the pain gradually and to open up slowly than to have it all happen at once.  I'm also hoping the longer the pain now the shorter it will be at time of delivery. I can only hope.

With my second wind I felt I should do more with P.  She's been talking about planting a garden for a while. Last week we bought seeds at Target.  I was amazed she understood I didn't want to buy their seeds because they weren't organic. She said "let's get flower seeds, we don't eat them".  She's getting so many concepts that aren't spelled out for her. She's having to connect the dots and I think she's doing it quite well.  

Then over the weekend I looked for DIY seedling cups to make. I made a few different varieties that I'll discuss and source later. So today we finally planted our seeds.

After that P wanted to paint so she painted outside. The weather was a bit chilly but it was sunny and beautiful and she wanted to be outside.  Her art classes at LACMA have changed the way she paints.  She is using different brush stroke techniques and the way she looks at her work is different. Things are changing in that head of hers.  

Doing all of this eased my guilt of letting her plop down on the couch and watch tv for the rest of the afternoon.  I can't do it all right now. I'm praying after the baby is born and I give it a few weeks I'll have my full energy again and be more available to P.  I miss our outings.  But on the other hand, my lack of energy and large body size is nature's way of easing me into the juggle of two. 

We did one last baking project before dinner. After, I should have known something was up when P wanted to go to bed instead of having dessert.  Turns out she has a fever. The end to our brilliant day. 

Too Many Crayons

I reorganized P's creative space.  It felt great to put things in proper places and discard the junk.  It also made me aware of what we have too much of.  Crayons for example....and there might be some childhood trauma associated to this.

As a child my parents bought me very few things unless they had something to do with tennis. Crayons were one of those things I desperately wanted but never really got. I think the biggest box I got was 64. I dreamed of the large box with the sharpener in the bottom. Instead I colored with the side of the crayon and rotated it so that it would stay sharp!  

Anyway, when I cleaned out the art box I realized P had so many crayons she could launch her own school.  She's gotten the largest box possible from us, as gifts and then there's me with my trauma. I bring home every crayon from every restaurant we've dined at that offers free crayons. I actually got annoyed with myself and a little jealous of P that we have so much now and I had so little of it then.  Then I got over it. 

I remembered some pretty cool art projects done with crayons from some of my favorite blogs.  But, I thought I'd start with something not too complicated. Melting crayons seemed like a possible task. I got my directions from this blog.  It was easy to follow. 

We started by sorting through all our crayons. We kept only the clean crayons and melted all the pieces and restaurant crayons.

Every step of sorting was wildly entertaining to P. She loved finding pieces and taking the wrappers off and then putting each crayon where it belonged.  

 Then we sorted by color. Even more entertaining to this 4 year old!

 Dave got me mini cans of soda to cut and use as the melting containers for each color.  These soda cans went into a pan with simmering water.  I would recommend using a pan you don't really care for. I made the mistake of using one of my good ones. When you pour the melted crayons into the molds the wax will drip down the side of the can.  You will have to put the cans back into the simmering water as you work to keep the wax liquid. Also, if you fill the pan with too much water the soda cans tend to float if they don't have enough crayon in them.  An inch of water or less keeps the cans from flipping.  I was paranoid of getting wax on my good pan! I can't imagine eggs tasting good with an essence of Crayola!

You will want to cover the space where you'll pour the wax into the molds with newspaper or something.  Even though our counter top is granite and the wax came off easy, there was quite a splatter of wax. It was much easier to just pick of the paper and throw it all out when done.  

I bought star and heart candy molds from Michael's for $1.99 each.  They have many different options but I thought I'd start small.  

The rest was pretty easy. Just pour the hot wax into the molds and then put them into the freezer for 5-10 minutes.  After they've cooled they slide out when flipped over very easy.  Because this was my first time I didn't do too many color combinations. On the few that I did combine it was pretty cool to see the color swirls. 

My only changes from the original instructions were that I cut the paper off the crayons before melting them. I found it easy to cut whatever wrapper was left on the crayon with a sharp blade. For the most part, the wrapper seemed to fall off in one piece that way.  And P helped throughout the entire process. She did not handle the hot soda cans but she did stir the wax with large Popsicle sticks.  It depends how comfortable you are with a stove and kids.  P cooks with me all the time so both of us were cautious but ok with it all. 

Dave was so amazed we created fresh, fun crayons out of old junky pieces.  And I feel so much better about our excess of crayons. And to some extend my soul healed a little bit. 

A Photographer/Director in the Making

 We weren't able to do a Christmas card photo shoot with our friends this year.  Dave's friend Tony was called to work on a movie in New Mexico at the last minute.  Dave was crazy busy with work as well so I knew P and I were going to have to do this one ourselves.  

I had an idea of doing a picture of P with my belly.  I didn't want to jinx the pregnancy but when Tony got called away to work I thought it was a green light the universe was giving me to go ahead.  I started out setting up the shot above.  It didn't take too many takes with the timer to get what I needed.  And it didn't take too long for P to push me aside and direct the shoot herself. 

We started with just the two of us.  I guided her a little bit on how the camera worked and how she could "check the gate" with the buttons on the back of the camera.  Dave came home just in time to be a part of it all at which point P really began directing.  It cracked us up to hear the things she said:

"oh that was a great picture", "i think it works", "ok this time fly like birds", "this one give me a scared face", "can you think of something happy and funny". It was like watching a mini director. She was quite articulate and clearly expressed what she wanted from us.  Below is an assortment of her shots.

 

This was our Christmas card this year. I ordered them again from Tiny Prints.  I love their paper stock, prices and overall quality.

Sunday

Today was one of those rare days when it's just P and me and we have no plans. The day evolved but we had a couple of breakthroughs.  First, P is the one who directed what we did and second, we actually cleaned up as we went along!  It usually takes a lot for her to clean up but today she went along with it without a fight or delay.

P pulled out the games and puzzles out of her game drawer after breakfast. First time she's shown an interest. First we played the fishing game. 

You have to collect either the same color or number on the fish until you fill your boat up with 4.  You fish and if you catch the wrong fish you put it back.  It never mattered where I put my bad fish back, or if P saw it. This time she saw I picked up one of her orange fish and saw where I put it back. When it was her turn she went and grabbed it! Too smart!

Next we put a puzzle together. Amazed she seems to figure out the harder pieces first.  I need to stop telling her how I would go about putting it together and let her do her thing. 

Then, we played with her stacking alphabet boxes.  It's been at least a year since she pulled that out! After stacking it I asked her to find certain letters.  She got some but didn't get others. Then, it surprised me to see her looking at the letters on the boxes and drawing them on paper!  Woohoo! She's getting it and she's showing an interest. 

We finally started cleaning up.  She wanted to paint or stamp as I had first suggested. I asked her if we could clean up some mess before starting an art project. We cleaned, she sort of played and cleaned. I did some stuff on the computer.  We cleaned, we played, on got on the computer again. Finally outside. She played, while I cleaned the back yard a bit. Finally we painted. 

I had some lanterns left over from her last birthday.  We decided we could paint them orange and turn them into jack-o-lanterns for Halloween.  

When we finished painting we cleaned it all up! Again, a first! Then we made lunch, salad and quesadilla for me. For her it was salad, quesadilla, apple sauce, probiotic drink and turkey and cheese!  Growth spur? Then she took a nap after lunch.

It's almost 5pm. She's still napping. Neither one of us has gotten out of our pjs. it's been a remarkable day.  I pray we will have days like this till the day she leaves for college.  I really really love my time with P!  I remember it being so hard when she was a baby and then a walking, curious toddler.  The dynamic of being around her has changed. I have a buddy.

Getty

We've done some fun things in the weeks since I've last blogged. Best adventure was going to the Getty. I've taken P to the Getty Villa several times but this was her first time to the Getty off the 405.

Their kid's section is amazing. Absolutely amazing!  It's divided into five separate rooms or cubicles, each inspired by art throughout the center.  One room had a giant, backlit, manuscript wall where the kids could draw on it like a dry erase board.  P LOVED it!   She's moved on from a paining phase to a drawing phase so this was her cup of tea. 

The next room was inspired by the King Louis bed located in the museum. This version was small but took up the entire space.  It was done just like the real thing with ornate, blue silk with tassels and rolled pillows on each end. It also had a cubby with books all devoted to beds and sleeping.  P loved bouncing on this bed and grabbing books. 

The third room was inspired by a sculpture I saw when we entered the museum.   The room had foam tubing all connected at various places on the walls.  P could take the tubings out and reconnect them as she pleased.  


The fourth room was inspired by a Hockney painting and it was filled with mirrors to "mirror" the effect Hockney did in his painting. I know P didn't quite get it but she did find it interesting. 


Last was a spot where the kids could draw their own masks. The inspirational painting was one with lots of faces looking at you. I forgot to look up the artist bc I was too crazy following P with crayons and the three masks she was attempting to create all at one time.  

After spending about an hour in the kid's center we went outside to the garden. P saw where we were going and took off running.  She ran and ran and ran. The garden is a maze that leads to a lowered center.  As you're coming in it feels like a giant drain. P was a little drop of water making her way down. 


This was the perfect adventure: she got culture, creativity and exercise!  I couldn't have been happier and  neither was P.  As we drove out of the parking garage she said "ahmazeeeing time Mamma, ahmazeeeing time" and then fell asleep before we hit the first light.