Fine Motor Skills

While Ethan and I have similar skills in a number of areas - music being the big one - we also have extremely differing capabilities in other arenas.  Ethan was quite interested and talented in the visual arts as a youth, and numerous paintings and etchings of his decorate the walls of our home to this day.  I, on the other hand, cannot be relied upon to cut a piece of paper in a straight line, let alone slice a bagel or a piece of bread.  I got in trouble in kindergarten for opting to tear the construction paper feathers of my Indian headdress (ah, the good old non-P.C. days of school Thanksgiving celebrations) because I deduced, as a 5-year-old, that ripped paper looked no more jagged and terrible than my scissor-work, yet was completed much, much faster.  I currently have a Make-a-Plate in our stack of dishes that I made - AS A TEENAGER - featuring Ariel the Little Mermaid looking like some sort of monkey-octopus hybrid. 

Just for comparison, here is some of my adolescent artwork:

I think the MOST pathetic thing about my drawing skills above is my complete inability to even accurately draw FISH.  I'm pretty sure my children could draw fish better than that pitiful display up there.


Here is some of Ethan's adolescent artwork:

Just to seal this case even tighter: when our children see the above etching, they are both immediately able to identify the subject as "Daddy."  When they look at the plate I made, they'll point to Ariel and ask, "Mommy?  What's THAT?"

At any rate, we have two children.  One of them has clearly inherited Ethan's artistic skills.  Although Madeleine has a predilection towards coloring everything black so that you can't actually see the details, her ability to color in the lines, write her letters, and draw objects boggles my mind, given that she only recently turned 3.  Julia, on the other hand, seems a lot more like her mommy. 

Last night, Julia and I sat down to work on her kindergarten homework.  Her homework packet consisted of four pages, with each page devoted to one number.  The first page, dedicated to the number one, started off like a piece of cake.  Trace the number one: easy-peasy, just a straight line down.  Then draw the number one.  Again, easy-peasy.  Straight lines don't got nothin' on Julia!  Then trace the word "one."  Julia was able to trace the lower-case letters with no problem, though I noticed she was tracing the "e" starting at the bottom of the letter, which posed difficulty for the following step in her homework.  Write the word "one."  After a few erasures, she was able to get the "o" and "n" somewhat accurate.  The "e" - not so much:

Uh...Hm.  Okay.  Let's try again.  After laborious efforts, we FINALLY had the whole line filled with repetitions of the word "one":

Thankfully, my long efforts working on the proper way to make a lower case "e" with her truly paid off.  Look at what a pro she was by the time we got to the homework page on the number 3!:

Success!  Or, as she put it, "Mama, those 'e's look like a GROWN-UP made them!"

Moving on to a completely unrelated topic, Madeleine had a lot of random thoughts on her mind this morning upon first waking.  After I showered and went upstairs to dress, I peeked through the crack in her door to see if she was still asleep, only to view her big brown owl eyes wide open as she laid in her bed.  I went through the door and greeted her, which opened the flood gates for all the things that must have been swirling through her brain while she had been laying there.

ME: Good morning, honey!
MADELEINE: Good morning, Mommy.  Mommy?  Did you know that I went to the DENTIST?
ME: I did know that!
MADELEINE: Yeah.  But...Mommy?  Why does a shot HURT?
ME: Shots hurt because your skin gets a little pinched.  That's what makes it hurt.  But shots are really important.  They make it so that you don't get sick from dangerous diseases.
MADELEINE: But...why does a shot hurt your THROAT?
ME: They hurt your throat?
MADELEINE: Mommy?  But...what happened to your throat?

I had no idea what she was talking about.

After we descended the stairs, I put Madeleine on the potty while I applied moisturizer to my face.  Clearly, watching me rub my lotion in completely threw Madeleine for a loop.  It was like she'd never seen anything like it, asking me, "Mommy?  Why are you putting that on?  Why are you putting that on your OVAL HEAD?"

Because, honey.  Mommy's oval head is starting to get wrinkles now that she's getting older, so moisturizing is important, just like getting shots at the dentist that hurt your throat is important.

At any rate, my oval head is now smooth with lotion and the kids are both off at school, where hopefully Julia will get a chance to show off some of her new, kick-butt lower case e's!