We had a cute moment last night in our house. My daughter was having a bit of a meltdown because it was getting close to bedtime and also because she wasn’t allowed to get another sheet of paper (not my decision). Anyhow, I decided to sit at the little Penn State table in our kitchen and try to cheer her up.
She asked me to trace her hand and I did. Since it’s close to Thanksgiving she’s been making turkeys, and that’s what this one was. While she was working on that, my son decided to join in. He brought over his sticker book (this one had cars and dinosaurs) and had me take sticker off, which he then assembled on a page of his own. Being 1 1/2, his creation was definitely interesting.
Well, my daughter decided she wanted a few stickers too, so I gave her a cracked Pterodactyl one and one with an adult Pterodactyl. She put those on her page and then drew them a nest. Then she noticed the volcano sticker and asked for that. She put it outside the nest. We overlooked the fact that it was greatly out of scale.
Then, as usual, she asked me how to spell a few words and wrote them at the top of her page. Eventually she wrote the sentence “Run Turkey and Dinosaurs”. I didn’t get it at first, but then she put the exclamation point at the end. Then it made perfect, hilarious sense. What she wrote wasn’t a title. Rather it was a command!
Thankfully, no turkeys or dinosaurs were harmed in the making of this drawing.
A writer in the making! They have such great imaginations, don’t they?
She has certainly got a lot of imagination – how cute!
This was my favorite line of the post:
… also because she wasn’t allowed to get another sheet of paper (not my decision).
There’s the fact — no paper — and then the disclaimer — the decision had nothing to do with you.
I’m certain your wife was dealing with paper all day long and she decided to cut her off after sheet number 1,873. And while you weren’t the one to cut her off you stood in solidarity with your wife’s decision.
We’ve been there multiple times and my husband does the same thing you did — he backs up Mom’s decision and then tries to help the daughter in question work with what she does have.
I imagine the turkey was much bigger than the dinosaur since it was the size of her hand and that makes me enjoy the fact that it’s on. The turkey could crush the dinosaur so the dino better run. But the turkey could win, so the turkey must give everything it has to run down the dino.
It’s like a scaled down version of survival of the fittest. My money is on the turkey. The turkey needs to take back the night.
Run, turkey, run! Show that dino who’s boss.
p.s. I think I’ve written my blog post for the morning. Perhaps I need to publish the link on my blog and be done with it for the day.
[...] I just read about how StrugglingWriter channeled his four-year-old daughter’s meltdown into a masterpiece by using a piece of paper, stickers and her artistic vision. And that is when I decided I had to [...]
Ah, so cute. I think she’s following in her father’s writerly footsteps.
Run turkeys and dinosaurs! Excellent. Children are so funny and refreshing…they never fail to please.
This is great. I love how she obvs had all this drama unfolding in her head while she was ~creating her masterpiece.~
Sue, I have posted the picture she created above. I think it’s pretty great.
Okay… you had me at “Penn State Table.” I want a picture of THAT!!
I love seeing this slice of life. And she is quite the artist/storyteller. Pretty good for a four year old!
As a mom, I appreciate the “not my decision,” too. My husband has a habit of seconding me by saying “you have to do that because mommy told you.” Clearly *he* disagrees, but evil *mommy* is the one who ruined your fun
Cardiogirl’s spot-on about the paper. We are currently into paper as well, and there would be entire notebooks filled with scribbles if I didn’t cut them off after awhile.
[...] read a post at Strugglingwriter’s blog about his four-year-old daughter’s drawing of a turkey so I had to challenge myself to a [...]