Mickey’s House

“Hey, I just got an idea! How about Mickey’s house?”

“Oh yeah?”

“Dad, can you copy this one?” He was referring to the toy Mickey house he got from Disneyland over the weekend. It’s pretty small, about 8 inches high, but full of details. He didn’t wait for my reply. “You’re only drawing the front okay? Everything you see from the front you draw it,” he said gracefully moving the back of his hand down over the front of the house. “Nothing from the back. You have to see what I see. So everything you see from the front you draw. Okay? Got it? Okay? Okay.”

Kindergarten is over, we had our weekend of fun at Disneyland, and today is the first day of his summer camp program. I wasn’t sure we’d continue with the snack sacks at all over the summer. I don’t even know how they’ll handle snack time or if there will even be a snack time. But it makes me happy that he wants us to continue our project. Actually, I was absolutely tickled by his boisterous enthusiasm this morning.

When I was about half way finished, he rushed over to my side of the kitchen table and chanted, “I want to see! I want to see!” He took a quick look and asked, “Did you make a mistake?” He answered his own question after studying the drawing for a few more seconds, “Nope!”

I think he was being nice. I was doing okay, but definitely struggling to make it look like the original. When I was done, I announced it. “I’m done!” I said.

“I want to see it!” he exclaimed. He ran over and let out an involuntary, “Whoa!” He immediately grabbed the Sharpie from the table and said, “This is colored in so I’m going to color it in.” He was referring to the little Mickey head on the door. “I want to draw a little secret Mickey down on the bottom.”

I wasn’t happy with what he added, but he was trying to contribute and that’s cool I suppose. I guided him to draw a more respectable Mickey head at the top and we filled it in together. “Less is more,” I reminded him, but he kept adding more. Finally I said in a playfully stern voice, “Drop the pen.” He didn’t. “Put down the pen,” I prodded once more and he finally did.

He sat back in his chair and looked at the drawing, carefully studying the details. “You are good,” he said respectfully. “You are really good.”