Experiencing Crayons

(From the lost files of November 2011)

I bought these triangle crayons two weeks ago with the thought that I was ahead of the game by introducing coloring to Vada at her young age of twenty-one months. If I would of thought harder I may have realized that I gave crayons to J and K much sooner than this, but I didn't think much of it at the time and was just excited to see what V would actually do with them.

I like providing options for my children. That way they feel as if they have some control over whats happening. So I filled my hand with all of the colors and let V chose what color she was going to start with.

Since she wanted all of the crayons (duh, mom-- a little less options would have been best), I improvised between a pink and a purple and gave her the magenta. She didn't seem to mind-- after I hid the rest of her options.

I showed her that crayons we not meant to go into our mouths but rather onto paper by drawing a generic flower of some sort and then I placed the crayon back into her hand and away she went.

She loved it!

Except for when they didn't work in the way that she wanted them to.

But she quickly seemed to figure out which way to hold them so that they made marks.

Vada and I sat for about a half of an hour with her coloring and me watching.

Vada has taught me to slow down and to appreciate things more appropriately. As I watched her figure out something simple like using a crayon I realized once again how precious this time together is. Soon she will be grown and very independent. Soon she wont need me quite as much as she needs me now but for this moment, together, her and I enjoyed something so small, yet so big, together.