Emmett the Artiste'

When Marissa was my one and only I remember making the bold-faced statement (well, actually I remember making many bold-faced statements that have come back to bite me), "I don't see how parents end up with kids writing on the walls--it's not that hard to put --insert writing utensil of choice-- away when you are done." And this is true. For the most part we parents, aside from the occasional slip-up, remember to put our stuff away, particularly the stuff we don't want our kids to get ahold of. It's those other little people sharing our homes that keep forgetting. An overlooked crayon, pencil, marker, here or there becomes an instrument of mass destruction when it gets in the hands of the wrong (or is it right?) person. Enter Emmett . . .

And honestly, that is only a very, very small sampling of the artwork around my home right now. I have a whole length of a wall done in pencil. The girls' room has two large drawings done in different colors of crayons. The kitchen/dining room area is full of various crayon and pencil drawings. We are kind of an "artsy" household. I don't want to strip my kids of all writing utensils until we are more attentive about cleaning up. But truly Emmett is just waiting in the shadows for that crayon to get knocked to the floor. None of my kids ever had this problem. (Well, I did struggle briefly with Jackson. But he limited his artwork to one area right next to the table--not all over the house.) So what's on my to-do list this winter? Repainting a lot of wall space three feet high and down!