Friday, March 22, 2013

Casualties of Crayon

Last weekend, Mima brought over a pack of jumbo crayons and coloring book for Abby, as well as a little desk for Michael. The desk has since been taken over by Abby, to do her coloring on.

And I do mean that literally. While she takes great pleasure in coloring in her coloring books, she apparently also has been making her mark elsewhere.

I was not surprised or particularly concerned to see Michael's Abby's desk looking like this after a day or two of use:


After all, Abby's fine motor skills are still developing, so there were bound to be some marks left when she overshot the pages of her books. Clearly, she's been doing some pretty intentional marking on top of all of that, but this is a child's desk, after all, and could probably pretty easily be cleaned off if I were inclined to do so.

I've known, since granting Abby the power of color, that I was going to find that color in places that I did not really want to find it, but I thought I'd been keeping a pretty good eye on her while the crayons were out, so I was pretty astonished to discover her next target this morning: the play kitchen.


Here are some close-ups of the carnage:





I didn't include a shot of the microwave door, because I didn't notice that it had been hit until I looked at the picture I took of the entire kitchen.

Ah, well. At least she chose a color that doesn't clash.

I have no idea when she found the time to do it, though. I don't watch her like a hawk every minute, but I feel like I would have noticed her at it had I been present at the time. Perhaps it was on Tom's watch...

The crayons have caused other problems, as well. If Abby has them out while Michael is around, he makes a beeline for her, attempting to snatch them out of her hand, get his little fingers in the way of her coloring, and/or chew on the crayons themselves. I've therefore had to establish a rule that the crayons only come out while Michael is napping. Of course, I don't really want to put it that way, lest I encourage resentment, so I just have to respond to Abby's frequent requests for "craans" with, "Not right now, Sweetie."

Yesterday, I had to dive down onto the carpet and snatch a broken-off crayon tip from Michael's hand before he popped it into his mouth. Today, I had to perform my first surgery on a crayon that had broken in half, with lots of "sticky tape," as Abby calls it (courtesy of Dora the Explorer).

Sigh. I love that she's found a new outlet to engage her creative side, but sometimes these crayons are more trouble than they're worth.

No chance we'll be trying markers anytime soon, except maybe that magical kind that only show up on special paper...

1 comment:

  1. Magic Eraser! :) The Color Wonder markers are fun and clean, but there is a bit of a delay for the color to appear and sometimes toddlers don't quite get it. I've found Crayola marker's washability to be trustworthy, though. :) Happy creating!

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