A Country Boy Can Survive!

Just Jack....love these pics-

Dancing on the hay!





"Wanna pick a pumpkin eff me?"

OOPS!

So our kids do know...... WE ONLY COLOR ON PAPER! In fairness, in the last several years we have covered the basics. No crayons on the walls. No crayons on the cabinets. No markers on the carpets. No crayons on your blankie. No glitter glue on the hard wood floor. No pens on the toilet (not kidding by the way). No crayons on the windows (it does look pretty when the sun shines in though). No pencils on your stuffed animals. You may not take a red crayon to time-out and decorate the trim while you think about what you did (still not kidding). No pens on your leg. No markers on your brother's leg (again totally true). No painting the table. No painting your face (wish I were kidding). We missed one- No permanent markers on Good-Will furniture! I took for granted the implied message of all the rules above. Let me spell it out for you, sweet, would-be budding Picasso, Monet (ie- Sam and Jack, listen closely). Are you ready?

Paper, coloring books, and craft supplies are the only surfaces upon which you may mark!

So Tom and I are getting "cleaned out." You know emptying closets, sorting through boxes that we haven't unpacked since 3 houses ago, letting go of some things that we have kept just for "sentimental value". Order and cleanliness and not having things crash down around your head when you open a closet should have sentimental value too (don't worry, Tom, you can keep the baby-sized Dallas Cowboy windbreaker- some things are too precious to get rid of). So in our quest to reduce, we emptied out the above dresser to recycle it and send it to Good Will (ironically about 7 years ago I bought it at a thrift store, painted it, etc for Tom and me- I digress). Anyway I took off the drawer pulls to use on another piece of furniture and emptied everything out of the drawers. I didn't think twice when I pulled out a permanent, black, writes-a-lot marker. I should have thought twice. I guess when mommy is taking drawers apart and dismantling handles, furniture turns into an art project for little boys. Maybe I gave my kids too much credit in the logical and analytical thinking department. Or, more possibly, I forgot that they are just kids. Their brains haven't developed enough to fully appreciate cause and effect nor have they mastered the ability to apply a larger principle into a number of unique circumstances. That doesn't mean that they got a free pass on the furniture artwork, however. Tom and I did get a chuckle after we shook our heads and asked each other, "what's the matter with our children?" We didn't drop them on their heads as infants, nor did we feed them chips of lead paint! How did they figure that this was a good idea? Again, I land on this conclusion. They are just kids. And too soon they won't be. So, I'll take a deep breath. I'll be clearer with my directions regarding appropriate spaces for artwork, and I'll bust out the rubbing alcohol and cotton balls to clean black marker off of an otherwise white dresser before we drop it off at Good Will.