Uh-oh.

Recently, we have acquired very large pieces of white paper that my kids LOVE to draw pictures on, because they can draw on it together without encroaching on each other's pictures. Last night, we all sat down to draw on it together. I marked out a little bit of space for myself and proceeded to draw the ONLY thing I have ever drawn in my whole life...a landscape of mountains, trees, flowers, grass and I included water with a boat and a log cabin.

When I say that I'm a horrible artist...it is an understatement to the nth degree. The picture I described above is what I have been drawing since I was a little girl and the actual drawing is extremely rudimentary.

As I sat, drawing away, I didn't realize that my boys were watching me very closely. When I looked up, I was amazed that Brandon had almost duplicated my own pictures. The trees, the sun, the grass, the mountains, etc., were exactly the same as mine, drawn by a 5 year old's hand. First, I was completely amazed at his ability to copy what I drew almost exactly. Second, I thought..."uh-oh."

Where's Auntie when you need her??? My sister is BY FAR a better artist than I am and it was HER that I tried copying when I was little. But, that never really worked out and I just continued to draw very badly while she graduated with a Fine Arts degree in college. So, WHERE'S AUNTIE!? Aagghhhh!

My boys are emulating ME in the drawing arena..."uh-oh" doesn't even begin to describe it. haha This is one of the FEW areas I DON'T want my kids to "do as I do". This is the funny and ironic part. Because my own drawing hand is stuck somewhere in my own 4-5 years old memory bank, my 5 year old could VERY EASILY duplicate what I did. You should have seen it...I was truly amazed...and then embarrassed as I realized WHY he could copy it so effectively. hahaha


(Brandon, Age 5)

But, Brandon IS truly amazing. He not only copied the picture that I made...he added a rainbow to the entire scene as well as office buildings, houses AND fireworks. I've said this before, I think living here in Shanghai has really opened a doorway for him as far as stirring his creative and architectural juices. Definitely a benefit to moving here. He even makes 3-D models of entire cities with his Legos...something he never did before we moved here.

Ryan enjoyed seeing Mommy's picture. He was my enraptured audience as he kept "ooo-ing and ahhh-ing". He especially liked my [very] geometrical boat with the happy face on the flag. haha He's so cute. ;-)

Soon, Daddy came in and drew very good figures of soccer players WITH soccer balls included. The boys picked which figure they best represented and soon drifted off to find a soccer ball. Whew. At least they didn't focus on my drawing for too long. But, it's activities like this one that I miss their Auntie very much.