Matthew Monday: Matthew's Drawing

On Mondays I intend to post a story or picture of my little son, Matthew.  Here's a short conversation that just happened a few minutes ago before I put him to bed.

Matthew is standing against his children's drawing board with a piece of blank paper clipped in for him to draw on.  I'm sitting on the floor beside him.  He puts his hand under my chin and holds my head steady.

"Stay still Daddy, I'm going to draw you."

Alright, that had me laughing.  He had never attempted to draw a person before, at least that I'm aware, and him putting his hand under my chin kind of reverses the roll of father and son.

"OK, draw me."

"Can I use green Daddy?  Can I?"

"You sure can.  Let's see you draw me."  Now I was curious.  His drawings have been mostly scribbled lines so far.  So he draws two vertical lines down the page, roughly what would be the margins of a page.  That's different, I'm thinking.  That could be a sort of tall person.

"Here are your eyes Daddy."  And he draws roughly round two circles, offset from the center, but still it wasn't scribble and they were passable eyes.

"Not bad Matthew."

"Here's your mouth Daddy."  And he draws a jagged line underneath the eyes in a sort of smile shape.

"Hey, that's pretty good."  I'm getting impressed.  How did he just learn how to do that?  He stands back and looks at his work.  "Now how about a nose," I say.  Well he draws a straight vertical line where the chin would be, and I giggle.  "That's not where it goes."

"Yes, it does," he says, sort of contemplating his artwork.  "Now I'm going to draw your boobie."

"WHAT!  What did you say?"

"I'm going to draw your boobie."  And he scribbles a sequence of short lines, nothing resembling anything recognizable, but about the place a chest would be.

"Where did you learn that?"  I say, laughing hysterically.

"And here's your other boobie."  And he draws similar scribble on the other side of the chest.  I'm now laughing so that tears are forming, completely shocked, and he's laughing pretty hard himself.  It was a moment to remember.

Here's what might be my favorite picture.  It was taken on our first full Father's Day together back in June 2011.