…writing

Usually, when your kid writes in her books, you’re sorta annoyed because she’s ruined them. This is generally my reaction to Neko’s efforts to augment her literature. However, last night, while reading an alphabet book, I noticed that, in this book at least, she’d actually traced the letters with a pencil, rather than just scribbling randomly. I was pretty amazed.

Recently, Neko’s been in love with writing (or, as she calls it: “Daw!” short for draw!). She demands that I write things for her, mostly “Baby” or “Panda.” Occasionally, she gets meta and wants me to write “Write.”

She also draws lines on paper, and points out how very line-like they are. “Lines!”

However, her writing is not always so tidy. She also likes to write on the walls, on herself, and on her toys. Sometimes she finds a squirreled away permanent marker to do this, but generally it’s crayon. Magic erasers are a crayon-loving mama’s friend. Unfortunately, the tattoos in permanent marker on her baby-doll’s face are permanent, as are the marks on our slipcovers (thank goodness I slipcovered those WHITE couches).

Neko tries to write on Panda, but we’re usually a bit quicker to notice that kind of mayhem. The drawing on walls is quick and stealthy, and we’re not very good at noticing it.

To combat this drawing-on-walls penchant, I’ve been hiding the crayons. But, after seeing those lovely traced letters in the book last night, that seems a bit mean. Should I pseudo wallpaper the house at toddler level? She’s not as interested in working on blank paper or coloring books, though will occasionally use them. This needs some creative thinking.

Panda, of course, can barely hold something like a crayon, but she wants to do anything her sister does, even though she’s only 7 months. Her funny preference is that she will (more or less) only eat food that she feeds herself. Unless she’s desperately hungry, she will snap her mouth shut if you approach it with a spoon. No, no! Panda’s a big girl and will hold her own spoon, thank you very much. She’ll eat with abandon if you give her her own spoon, of course, most of that food ends up outside her mouth. Silly Panda.