Quick Draw, McKiernan

In addition to knowing the states and understanding tortilla chips better than I do, Kiernan has now revealed he can also draw better than I can. Seriously. Just ask Tric Wesp. She was the professor who was tasked with trying to teach me costume design. She had to look at my renderings of the human form for an entire semester. It's no wonder she required that we provide Mimosas during our final presentations.

Yeah, so my toddler son can draw better than I can. I'm fine with that. I do look forward to next year, when I anticipate he shall teach me how to drive. If it even takes until next year. His mother, who sits in the back seat with him when she's not driving, is already grooming him as her sidekick backseat driver. "Tell Daddy to turn left here, honey." Like I needed another one.

I suppose it could be worse. Remind me to tell you about "stupid apples" sometime when we're face-to-face. It's an anecdote courtesy of our friends Nino and Jessica. I'm not sure it belongs in a child's blog, so you'll have to wait, but it is gold. (How's that for a tease?)

Anyway, above is a picture of Kiernan's first very clear drawing of a face. I was preparing dinner and Wendy was playing with Kiernan. She is just an awesome mom. She comes home from work and without skipping a beat takes over playing with Kiernan with joy and exuberance. I'm sure this is made easier by the fact that as soon as she walks in the door Kiernan's wattage rises by about 150%. He just lights up when he sees her. I love it. And I'm just amazed by her ability to work a full day, sit through a couple hours of traffic, and not hint at a complaint as she jumps into taking care of our boy. All without a cocktail!

So Kiernan was doodling on one of his dry erase boards and he came up with that face. Wendy called me in to see it and I was able to capture the moment in pictures. All hail digital cameras.

We've already documented Kiernan writing his first word, though I did not post about it here. His first written word was, fittingly, "mommy". He did this outside, with his sidewalk chalk. I didn't even notice at first. I was out there with him, but my mind was sort of wandering. In the background I heard him talking to himself as he doodled on the sidewalk.

"M...O...M...M...Y," he would say. It was a bit more spaced out and randomly timed than the quoting above lets on, so he did it a couple of times before I finally focused on what he was doing. Plus, the letters were going in a spiral and were over other doodles. But when I really tuned in to what he was up to my mouth dropped open.

He's still writing his letters, although to keep them interesting sometimes he dresses them up in costumes. "Costumes" is his term for what he's drawing. He'll write the alphabet as usual ('C', 'J', and 'S' do tend to show up backwards, which is, of course, fine with us), but then he'll draw little lines and designs within the letters. Sometimes 'R' will end up looking fuzzy, or 'A' will look as though it is filled with stained glass panes. It's nifty.

It's cool to see him graduating to pictures (he draws flowers, too). Good that he's already grasping what his father sometimes forgets: life is more than mere words.