Enormous Catch-Up Post

Well, posting from my phone just didn't happen after the first night!  Our days and evenings were too packed.  So here's the whole week's worth of drawings.  On this page, top left, almost-four-year-old Nate telling me about a toy he was playing with in his play kitchen; and at top right, five-month-old Abby in her sun hat.  All across the bottom, Maya playing in the pool with a large blue plastic whale and Kerstin holding Abby in some kind of swimming front pack.

Nate likes to draw and paint and gets right in the middle of the action.  On the left is his page, which he told me is "Diesel Ten's claw is clawing the old door."  (We had just watched a Thomas the Train video.)  On the right I drew Nate painting, then he added colors to the paints in the paint set and provided a circle with a signature line for me to sign the page.

Nate asked me what color the yellow ochre paint was.  He then became fixated on yellow ochre.  When we walked in his neighborhood later that day he kept pointing out things that were yellow ochre.  So on the left, another painting by Nate, this one described as "And then the paint animals go inside the yellow ochre".  On the right, my drawings of two delicious recipes:  watermelon salad (sounds counterintuitive, but is really wonderful) and fish tacos.  Try them!

On the left, a man standing at the New Jersey Transit station in Maplewood, where we were visiting.  On the right, Nate wanted me to draw his stinky - cheese feet.

On the left, Nate's cat Rosie;  on the right some quick and incomplete sketches made in the Museum of Natural History.

Maya and Phil and I met some of our friends in NYC and went to the Museum of Natural History.  Both sides of this page have drawings from that day-- Pat was drawing on her iPod while I drew her, but moved away in the middle of my drawing; however, the walruses were dead and were holding very still, so I was able to get all the details of them that I wanted.

When we got home from NYC, I took Nate on an outing back down to the train station, which he loves.  On the way home we saw a car being loaded onto a tow truck.  We watched the whole operation, and Nate told the story to go with the drawing.

The next morning Maya and I went back into the city on the train.  We were enjoying watching people and listening in on conversations.  On the left, a man eating a bagel while working on his iPad while a woman told her friend "My nanny's daughter is having a baby!" and the conductor seemed to be having a battle with the taped announcement and was shouting contradictory station names.  On the right some pieces from a show we saw at the Met.

I really enjoyed drawing these things at the Met.  Maya was drawing next to me.

A somewhat tight drawing of Nate on the left, and a much nicer relaxed drawing on the right.

On the left, Nate fabricated a little toilet out of a cable plastic thing and told me "Look what I made!  A toilet!  Draw it!" 

After missing our flight home, we went back to Maplewood and had a very fine bonus day.  Maya and I spent much time watching movies on our phone and iPod, but even that got a little boring, so here's Maya being a bit bored.  But on the right, as we were waiting for our flight early the next morning, Maya very much enjoyed her Auntie Annie's pretzel from the pretzel stand at Newark!