Personalities

My boys are different. Kind of like night and day in a lot of respects. Like sleeping, eating, talking, playing...I could go on and on. Saturday I was inside with Sam all day, who was still a bit under the weather, and Jack hung out with his Daddy doing "cattle stuff." By the middle of the afternoon Sam was going stir crazy so I drug out the dot paint and coloring books. Jack came home soon after we started and immediately found his seat at the table to paint too. And it didn't take long for their personalities to shine through onto their artwork.

Sam meticulously planned each dot. He began with the drawing of the beaver, placing each dot carefully on the paper, careful not to paint too much. I encouraged him to fill the page with dots, not just certain areas. "Um, no thanks." I offered him other colors to make the picture bright and colorful. "Um, no thanks." He did get a little experimental on the drawing of the fox, nearly covering the entire picture with that same, safe yellow paint. Yes, he took a walk on the wild side with that fox...

Jack plopped in his seat and couldn't get his sleeves pushed up fast enough to get started. He got angry when he couldn't hold all six colors in his hand at the same time. Jody convinced him to use one color at a time and gave a quick demonstration. And it was on. He pounded out those dots like a mad man. And he couldn't rotate the colors fast enough. Soon bottles were flying, caps were scattered on the floor and he worked feverishly to use one color and quickly replace it with another without missing a beat. His paper was dripping with a soupy mess, all six colors running together. "Slow down, honey," I begged. "You are putting on too much paint. Your paper is soaking wet and is going to tear." The only way to make him stop was to grab the soaked paper away from him and replace it with a dry, fresh copy before he pounded out the next dot. Pure, pure Jack...
There artwork is proudly displayed side by side on the kitchen cabinets. They love admiring their handiwork as do I. But I find myself admiring the differences the most.