I love kid art. Nothing makes me happier than when one of my gremlins scurries over to me, grinning proudly through his fangs as he shows me the latest picture of he and I doing something together.

Sometimes, we're walking hand in hand through a park with the sun overhead and big smiles on our faces. Sometimes, we're riding a bike - or what I'm told is a bike after I casually ask what that grey scribble is beneath my crotch. And sometimes, we're doing one of my favourite quiet time activities: zapping aliens with our radar guns in outer space.

I like my kids' drawings so much, in fact, that I asked them to make something for our neighbour across the street. It was his birthday yesterday, and I had already brought them some chocolates a couple of days before, so I decided to milk the 'I have small children who make cute pictures' cow for as long as possible. I've come to realize that many older people love fridge art, and that this can be a gift in itself.

Or so I tell myself when it's someone's birthday and I'm broke because it's less than a week before Christmas.

Do you have any idea how much money a person can save with some offspring, a box of markers and some printer paper? One child gives you a good seven or eight years worth of artwork. They make cards, snowflakes, paintings, Christmas tree ornaments... The slave labour possibilities are practically endless! And, if you're previously infertile smart like we were, you space the births out over a decade, thus maximizing money saved by not overlapping their cutsey-wootsy talents; Just as one grows out of card-making, another is ready to take on the role.

Brilliant, I tell you. Absolutely brilliant.

Anyway, both Spawnling and Gutsy worked their forked little tails off making something special for our neighbour, Mr. Len. Naturally, I had to take pictures of their, uh, pictures, and share them. After all, everyone needs a good laugh on a Monday:

Before anyone comments on Spawnling's incredible writing skills, I should probably mention he had a little help from me. Now you can comment on my incredible writing skills. Go ahead: my letter forming is rather impressive.

"I'm going to draw some balloons for Mr. Len!" Spawnling declared. I got out my trusty blue marker. A mother just knows that sometimes these displays of artistic talent require a description (note what I wrote at the bottom left). He was quite adamant about using brown for his picture, which I now see is because that colour invokes within him the ability to draw something comprehensible. The brown shape is about the only one resembling an actual balloon. The rest either look like stink lines or are depicting the brown balloon having some type of seizure - I'm not quite sure. He then topped it off with some 'sparkles'. My kid is awesome.

Gutsy is turning into quite the little artist. He's come a long way since stick figures and ovals with legs that are supposed to be one of a dozen different animals. He's now into drawing anime-like characters, in part due to big brother Intrepid, who is pretty much obsessed with the stuff.

The problem is that everyone and everything is made into an anime character. He brought home a picture of he and his teacher, and both of them look like they're straight out of a Pokemon episode. And now, our elderly neighbour has his own special place in Japanese-style cartoon art.

There are a lot of different elements to this picture. For one, there's Mr. Len himself, complete with the standard spiky anime hair ("I'm colouring it grey, because he's old," explained Gutsy.) Mr Lenimon has an expression that says "I'm about to kick someone's ass and love every second of it," all the while giving everyone the finger - which is okay, because he has an abnormally large number of them on that hand, and could probably spare one or two of them.

You know, I once had a friend who was reduced to tears because her son's grade 1 teacher said he wasn't drawing fingers on his people and that this meant he was somehow delayed in that area. My son now has the same grade 1 teacher, and I'm wondering if he'll say Gutsy is gifted because he draws excessive amounts of fingers on his people.

Ok, probably not. But it was a nice thought.

Making Mr. Anime Len even more bad ass is that his age is proudly displayed beside him, with a giant arrow letting you know that he's 78 and still going to beat the crap out of you. And what's going to help him? The balloon-type thing floating next to him, which I can only assume is his trained Pokemon ally.

Dude, I love my kids, and I love their art. Nothing makes my day more than something they've made. I could have a house filled with it.

Oh, wait. I do. That's why I pawn it off on other people.