Freehand

Yesterday our resident Dinosaur Enthusiast Isaac pretty much exhausted the supply of ferocious-looking dinosaur coloring pages the internet had to offer. When yet another boring old Yunnanosaurus picture popped up on our typical Google search, the boy took matters into his own hands.

Remember how he can write letters now, suddenly? Turns out he can also draw. Who knew? On his own, he drew a whole stinkin' page of new-to-him dinosaurs to color.



And color he did. Note how they all have little chicken legs. He scribbled black on their tummies to represent either: 1) "This is a mommy dinosaur with eggs growing in her belly" or "This dinosaur ate a Stegosaurus for dinner, and here it is in its belly". The prominent raspberry-colored one is an Allosaurus. The squat little girly purple one behind it is a Deinonychus. He named some of the other ones, I can't remember which... one is a Styracosaurus, but then Isaac thought it best if he name the rest things like Bumposaurus and Flaposaurus and Okerosaurus. As Magic School Bus taught us, if you find the first fossils, you get to name them.

After he drew this dinosaur menagerie, he added the purple things at the top -- "These are Pteradons!" -- and the long green thing at the bottom, lying in the blue sea ("This is a crocodile-like reptile!"). There are also three trees on the right side -- see them, the skinny sticks with a token amount of green on top? -- because his dinosaurs simply must live in the forest.

I just can't get over this, how amazing it is to me to see my son, not yet four years old, doing this stuff that people do. It reminds me of how I felt when he first started walking, like a whole new world of entertainment possibilities suddenly lay right in front of him.