A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Baby

Happy New Year!  LG's Mama here filling in for a very busy Daddy.

2011?  Let me 'splain.  No, there is too much.  Let me sum up.  LG started the year an adorable little blob with zero neck control, few preferences, and no vocabulary.  She ended the year an adorable little girl who runs through the house at full speed with no regard for sharp edges or slippery floors, has a new favorite book, food, shirt, toy, and animal every few hours, and just this weekend started using her rapidly progressing speech to manipulate her Mama into giving her anything she wants by saying "please" in the cutest toddler voice ever released into the air.

I had been planning a a big ol' end of the year wrap up, but honestly, there was too much to write about. She's been pretty darn cool this year, and as evidence I offer the following picture:

Alright, so to most people this maybe not seem that cool, (In fact, I think it makes Matt a little queasy...) but painting is the most fun LG and I have together.  In a day that involves the systematic moving of toys from one end of the house to the other and reading the same board books over and over, it's one of the only activities she really enjoys that I also really enjoy.  We started small.  Some finger paints while she was strapped into her highchair.  By the end of 2011, we were painting once a week, making huge paintings like the above which became wrapping paper for her Christmas gifts to family, and even using a paintbrush.  She even has dedicated "paint clothes." Sure we make a mess.  Sure we sometimes eat a little paint.  But that's why God (via Crayola) created washable, nontoxic paint. 

She loves mixing colors and experimenting with ways to get the paint from the bottle to the paper.  I love watching her swirl all the paint together and discovering that sensation of paint squishing between her fingers.  I like noticing the patterns in her finished pieces of art, and she likes the messy hand prints on the bathtub before the requisite post-creative-process bath.  Most of all, we both love it when she paints her feet. 

She does this a lot.

I like to think that I'm helping her on her way to being a creative child and eventual adult.  I like to think that I'm providing the groundwork for years of art creation and appreciation.  I like to think that she'll follow in my footsteps and love everything from coloring books to modern art.  Mostly, I'm just enjoying the time we spend together making really big messes.