Artwork

I have a real fondness for the art the kids created when they were younger. Jack drew pictures of monkeys with big eyes, goofy grins and gangly fingers and toes, and his "Rainbow Man" -- pictures of happy people where every line was a different color -- still make me smile. Kate drew pictures of people that were basically big circles with stick figure arms and legs, with dots for eyes and noses and big smiles. She drew them over and over and labeled them "Mommy" "Daddy" "Jack" and "Kate," the females usually distinguishable from the males because they had a piece of hair over each ear, while the males had just one squiggly hair on top.

At one point she'd made four such pictures, one for each family member, and we framed them in four separate plastic frames and hung them together in the playroom. I probably walked by them every day without noticing them, until I noticed that while the kids were cleaning up and redesigning their house area yesterday, they'd removed three of the pictures in favor of different ones they'd made. Two I found scrunched up in the trash, the third was on the floor.

I brought the kids down to the playroom and gave them the riot act, about how the frames are ours and they're not supposed to touch them or change them, and that I was sad Kate's old pictures were damaged, because they gave me a lot of great memories. Both were sad and apologetic, genuinely, and I felt bad and all that.

After that I saw Kate going back and forth from one art area to another. Turned out she was trying to re-create the same pictures that had been crumpled, with the same-colored marker and her same choppy, charming style. She didn't quite get them, but it was pretty sweet.

Jack created a drawing of his own, a note that said "I'm Sorry!" and then this cartoon character he created recently, Marty Mushroom, making a joke about it.

I thanked Kate for her pictures and took them, but I later found her huddled in my desk chair crying. What's wrong, I asked. She was sad because I hadn't immediately put the pictures into the frames. I explained that I was trying to flatten out the original ones and use them again, which cheered her right up.

I get nostalgic, Kate is very sensitive, and Jack is kind of a mixture of both -- not quite as sensitive, but thoughtful and anxious to make amends, as is Kate. Basically they're both great kids. And, I think I'll need to get more frames soon.