Oh, MS, You Amaze and Perplex Me!

My middle son has a passion for art. He seems to never be at a loss for a new idea, nor does he ever tire of drawing the same morbid characters (skeletons, bats, mummies, etc.) over and over again, each time fine-tuning some aspect of the drawing.

Here are some of his recent drawings:

He loves to glue two googly eyes to his drawings of skeletons (and notice how he draws the individual bones now).

He draws monkeys because he knows they are my favorite animal.

He has also started gluing and taping the corners down to make puffed up pictures (not sure why):

This is ES's favorite drawing. We asked MS what it was and he said he had drawn a "gravedigger." Oookayyyy. Makes me a bit concerned that his art may be misunderstood in grade school.

He continues to be interested in 3 dimensional art. He made his very own trick-or-treat bag (preparing a Halloween bag in February - he'll make a wonderful Boy Scout, someday!) complete with eyes made from rubber bands.


He made a boat, with a box full of snakes on board. I love the Jolly Roger he added with a toothpick.


Today, he really blew me away. At some point, I know he called out for me to spell the word "Done." Then, he came to ask me if I could find some dice because he wanted to play a game. Engrossed in something else, I said, "if you need dice, the game should have them." Finally, after relentless begging, I ran downstairs and fetched a spare die. Here is the game he was playing:

Side note: You can see, just behind YS's hand, that sleepy bear surfaced (in their closet, under a pile of stuffed animals they had tossed in when told to clean up) and has resumed his role in our daily lives.

Initially, there was only one ladder, leading down into a snake pit. As we played, it was extremely amusing. The game piece characters are so large that they take up more than one square. Thus, when MS would count he would merely jump around the designated number of times (usually covering at least three extra squares). Not surprisingly, I lost the first round. I explained that I was happy to lose because I didn't quite want to end up in the snake pit after all.

At that, he grabbed up the game and ran back to the table. He returned to show me a second ladder, leading into a monkey tree. (If you click on the pictures, you can see the details better.)

So, why does the boy perplex me? Whenever he concentrates, he licks his lips. He concentrates when he creates art. He concentrates when he plays games on the Playstation. He concentrates a lot. As a result, we have been living with his clown face for several weeks now.

He doesn't seem to mind in the slightest. It drives ES crazy. We have tried putting A&D ointment on every evening. It looks better in the morning, but after a few hours is back to its normal vibrant color. We try to remind him to stop licking. Nothing works. The hairdresser suggested lavender oil. We'll see if that cures him of his funny face. In the meantime, he'd better hope that people love him for his art and not for his appearance.