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| © 2014 Your Mom Is Strange |
As we're approaching the mid-week mark, we're getting busier and busier. I have to add some final touches to a client's pottery website, I have blog posts to write, a writer's meeting, a looming release-to-press date tomorrow for my day-job's monthly publication, a 10am All-Staff meeting, a counselor appointment, a preschool parent meeting, a product review to write, must find flip-flops and pack for our family camping trip in New York, and in between all that I have to try to raise a (relatively) normal human being and exercise 3 times a week (one walk down!).
Mark cleaned my kitchen over the weekend, and I've been working hard to keep up with it, but the living room looks like some poor child's oversized toy box exploded.
Also, Harriet died. Harriet is the rabbit at preschool. Elle is handling it pretty well. We've talked about it a little bit, but when I bring it up, she mostly just starts telling elaborate stories about what she and Harriet are going to do for the day -- "ride bikes, visit the grocery store, go to the park, and go on lots of slides." Is she seriously using her story-telling skills to cope with this loss? That's kind of amazing, right? I told her we can talk more about it if she wants to. I don't want to encourage complete avoidance of the issue, but she is only two-and-a-half, and I have to let her figure this one out (at least partially) on her own.
Anyway, busy work schedule, appointments, meetings, messy house, dead rabbit, and Salt N Pepa songs running through my head, and what am I doing...?
Painting pictures of cows with hair.
Yep. Welcome to the Strange household. I can't stop drawing. After E goes to bed, I curl up in bed, surrounded by a sea of notebooks, pens, and paints, and I watch Forensic Files and just draw and paint whatever I feel like.
The night before, I had a dream about a cow with hair -- a beautiful watercolor, of a cow with flowing locks of gorgeous hair. I had to paint it. I've been wanting to do a study of an animal for my sketchbook, especially after the creature-drawing class we took. I had intended on drawing hippos, which I still can, but this cow dream really inspired me. I can't wait to improve my cow-drawing skills now and fill my sketchbook with new moo-dos (as Mark calls them)!
Yesterday, Ellie covered half of the dining-room floor with Post-It notes, lining them up in neat, straight rows. She was quiet for a long time, so when I investigated only to find that she was using my Post-It collection to re-tile our floor, I was ever so slightly annoyed.
"What are you doing!?" I asked.
"Oh, hi, Mama (sigh). I'm just doing my artwork. Want to help me?"
Oh, my heart... it's melting... melting... "Sure, I'll help." I mean, if I'm allowed to express myself and relieve stress by painting pictures of cows with hair, surely she can cover our dining-room floor with lines of Post-It notes to do the same. They're still there, on the floor of that room, which is apparently now housing a rotating art exhibit.
Yeah, I'm a proud mama.
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