The Secret to Why We Have Kids

Today, Spawnling "graduated" from his preschool program. I put that word in quotes because he'll be back for another year in the fall; this time for four days each week instead of two (thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou Gods of Maternal Alone Time! All those slaughtered goats and virgins have finally made you pay attention to me.)

Attitude? Spawnling? Never.

The graduate and his biggest brother

I got a little teary for a couple of minutes when they were singing their cute little songs and standing in their cute little rows with their cute little certificates. We only have one more year of having a preschooler. It's going to be hard to say goodbye to this stage of life, forever. If I could bottle up his four-year-old-ness and keep it for always, I most definitely would. Today, he told his teachers he wants to be a beekeeper/cop. Not just a beekeeper and not just a cop. He also told me that the woman who turned the corner was a "very stupid person" because she didn't use her "orange flashing lights" to tell us she was turning. At least he has the cop thing down. I admire his sense of justice.

Know what I don't admire? His tantrums. His outbursts. His unwavering attitude every time he gets tired and his filters become penetrable. Tonight, as we were finishing up some swimming pool mooching (my favourite summer sport), he decided to call his buddy "the stupidest friend ever," refuse to apologize, tell me he hates me, and then run outside, crying.

I'm contemplating chloroform and some ropes next time we go out. It would certainly make "it's time to leave" much simpler.

Anyway, since I'm still just a little bit mortified about McScreamy's departing monologue this evening, I need to remind myself why we have kids in the first place. Why we build these little yell-bots inside our bodies and let them rampage around for eighteen years under our watch.

This post is going to help.

And if it doesn't, there's always chocolate.

Found in Spawnling's backpack this week. Freaking adorable.

One of my favourite things about little kids is their artwork. Spawnling has always loved to draw, but his drawings were more like scribbles until about six months ago. Suddenly, the mess of colour became somewhat decipherable and meaningful. Here are some of his recent works:

A very scary monster (or me in the morning. Not sure which.)

Self-portrait complete with pig snout, Wolverine claws and a bad toupee

Spawnling with ebola-stricken mom and dad who are obviously bleeding from the eyes

Gutsy is more of a gadget guy; a creator of sorts. One day, his friend R was here with his sister, E. I guess Gutsy and R were trying to come up with the ultimate weapon against poor E. They went into his room and plotted. I found this in there after R & E had gone home:

All her base are belong to boobs.

But this morning - oh, this morning - I received a picture to my iPhone that had me sitting in my van on the side of the road and laughing until most of my makeup had run off my face. My friend's son, a kindergartener, brought a picture home that he had drawn. In it, he's hugging what looks to be an elephant.

I'm pretty sure this kind of hugging is illegal in most countries.

... Or, at least, he's spending some sort of, uh, quality time with the elephant. And the pachyderm seems to be enjoying it quite a bit, too, by the looks of that tongue. What a happy mammal and a very outgoing boy.

I need to, once again, thank said friend of allowing me not only the pleasure of seeing this picture, but for suggesting I blog about it. You can't make this shit up, people. You just can't. This is true, raw, somewhat suggestive art at its finest.

I would have paid any amount of money to be a fly on the wall when the teacher saw that drawing for the first time. Any. Amount. No joke.

And there you have it: This is why we have kids, and probably why teachers teach.

Birthday Cards from my Kids

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.