Luc and the chalk

Luc is two years, seven months old, and the drawing part of his brain has just come on-line. It seems to have started with the Haw River Festival last Saturday, and the chalk drawing. Up to then, when Sophie was drawing, he might make some marks on a piece of paper, but pretty quickly he would turn to playing with the pens or pencils or crayons as objects themselves, perhaps building something with them. But all of a sudden, he is drawing things. An airplane! A baby mouse! Look, Mommy, I drew you!

The first picture he drew of me was a longish, rounded rectangle with dots all over it and two L shapes on one end. “So, what are the dots?” I asked. “Them are yours freckles,” he says, as if it is obvious. “And what are these L shapes?” I ask. “Them are yours knees.”

Monday he spent hours outside drawing on the rocks with chalk. Hours. That is a lot of focus for a little guy! He is drawing right now with a red pencil he took from Paul’s work that he now carries with him everywhere, like a teddy bear. “I need some paper,” he says, in the car, at the table, on the swing. “Mommy, would you please get me some paper?”

I think this is so cool. I think about how it would have been a waste of his time to try to ‘get him’ to draw before now–his brain wasn’t ready. And I was tempted, sometimes, because Sophie started drawing a LOT at eighteen months, and it just seemed like, hey, this is fun, want to try it? But he didn’t. Not yet. This intensity of interest in drawing may last a week, he may lose interest for a year. Whatever. I just love getting out of the way and watching him do his thing. Which, right now, is drawing.  On everything.  All the time.  “Can I draw on this, Mommy?” And, “Will you draw with me?”