Rainbow Magic Birthday (Mimi's 7th Birthday)

i asked ozzy to draw a picture to hang up in his new classroom at preschool this school year.  it was a very sweet and ultimately fascinating process to sit by him as he drew.  i gave him paper and asked him what he would draw.  he said he wanted a dinosaur.  T Rex!

he grabs a pencil ready to draw, then suddenly freezes, looks at me and says, pathetically, "but i dont know how to draw a T Rex."

well, i say, you know it has a head, and big body, and a tail.  so let's start there.  just do an oval for the head.

ozzy says, plaintively, "but i dont know how to draw an oval."

yes, you do.  i said.  it's like making an O for Ozzy.  but you can draw it long the other way for the T Rex's head.

so he draws a tiny oval.  i erased it and told him to make it bigger because T Rex is BIG.

he made a bigger oval.  then what shape for the body, i asked?  how about another oval but much bigger for the body.  he complies and draws it much bigger, but does not connect the body oval to the head oval.  i pointed out that the head wasnt attached to the body, so he drew lines to connect the two.  then add a pointy tail!  i suggested.  which he did.  then he added fat legs and short arms with two stick fingers.  and an eye, teeth, and tiny ears and a swirly nostril

are you done?  i asked.

no, he's eating.  ozzy says.  i have to draw his food.  he's eating a critter.  but i dont know what a critter looks like.  it's all dried up.  he's eating dried meat.  that's what he likes to eat.

well, what kind of critter is it?  is it another dinosaur?  do you want to draw another dinosaur?

no!  ozzy says.  it's MEAT.  i want to draw MEAT!

you mean like a bone with meat on it?

yeah.  ozzy says.  and it's RED.

but the bone is not red, is it?

ozzy, reflects and says, no it's WHITE!  (looks around).  BUT i dont SEE a white marker!

no, you dont have a white marker (i actually own some white paint markers, but i didnt think of them at the time).  maybe you can just leave the bone part drawn in pencil or trace it with gray or yellow?  i suggest.

no, bones aren't gray or yellow!  he insisted.i'm going to leave it.

okay.  that's fine.

he takes a red marker, reads the color label.  oooh, this says this is "bright cherry".  is that a good color for meat?  i think it's perfect!  he answers himself.

then he traces the meat.  then adds some red dots on the bone for the blood on the bone.  (lol)

then i asked if he wanted to color the T Rex and i suggest coloring it brown or green.  but he tells me no! and he decides on blue, then orange, then purple, and yellow.  i had to force myself not to push my own ideals on to him.  instead i praised him for his efforts and interesting color choices because it's not always so easy to have him stay seated long enough to color an entire page.

after coloring in his body, he starts telling me, " T Rex is eating his dried meat.  and i'm going to draw a leaf on his head because a leaf falls on him while he's eating and he's going to be like, HUNH???, and then he's gonna go "GRRR!" 

do you want to write a speech bubble where T Rex growls? 

no, says ozzy, i dont want one of those.  i just want it to say GRRRR.  how do you write GRR? 

so i say, just write a G and as many Rs as you want.  if you do a little bit of R's it's a short growl and lots of Rs for a longer growl.

ozzy says, "i'm going to write soooo many Rs!  that's going to be really funny."