Today I was babysitting. My daughter and her family are finally recovering and getting back into old routines after their covid quarantine nightmare. I gather that there have been a few times in the past two months where Roen is allowed to watch TV while the baby is being put down for her afternoon nap. Today when I came down after putting baby Maeve to sleep Roen became upset because she wanted to watch TV while I was putting her sister down for her nap. I let her cry. She went under the table. I made her a fort in the playroom. She sat under it sobbing and every few minutes I would hear how she wanted to watch TV. I was reading my book in an armchair. Finally I knew just the right remedy. I didn’t say anything to her but I went and got my sketchbook and bag of pens and sat by the door and started to draw the trees in the backyard. I kept my focus on making my own art. Before I knew it she was there by my side telling me how she wanted to draw. I told her to get her own paper at her art desk, and she did. After asking if she could use one of my pens, and my giving her one, she told me how she was going to draw a house and her inside watching TV. I don’t know if she managed to do that as shortly after mom came down and told me she was done with work for the day so I left. Plus she is only starting to draw figurative drawings and most of her drawings are still scribbles. But I left pleased Roen was embracing drawing what she wished for but could not have. And I left her three pens and a brush from my bag of drawing implements.
This Thursday Roen came to our house. I had taken a bunch of books out of the library including a book about Henri Matisse. I read it to Roen and immediately afterwards she went to her painting area at our table and decided she was going to color areas of paper. After trying to cut it out she asked me if I would cut some shapes out for her. She still can not do more than edge cuts with the scissors so I obliged and cut a bird. Then she colored some more paper and I cut a wolf. And this repeated until we had a fish and a whale. She then wanted to glue them on a colored sheet of paper. And with my help she did. But then she wanted me to cut out a JellyFish. After my first attempt, “That’s not a Jellyfish it’s a mushroom.” I tried again. “That’s not a Jellyfish it’s a hammer.” Then tears and “I am feeling very angry”. I told her she could use the shapes as coral. “Noooooo…it needs legs” So I cut a somewhat abstract shape with tentacles. She looked at it and said, “It looks more like an elephant” But she decided to use it anyways and then agreed to glue the other shapes on as coral.
