Another item that Mom picked up for Corwin was a bag of cloth rings for his potholder kit. I haven’t seen Corwin use them yet but once again something for Corwin has made Charles very happy.
What Charles does is tie the rings together to make long chains. He’s actually quite good at it after so much practice. He has been using the chains of cloth to substitute for the DENTIST LINE to hold the door shut. This is a better situation as the cloth has a lot more give in it than the plastic tape.
Charles is a boy that has more fun with scotch tape than any other boy I’ve seen. He loves to tape things up. Anything. Just random pieces of paper that are lying around. In fact, he cuts up paper so that he can tape them back together. I used to have to get the pieces of tape from the roll for him but now Charles can do that by himself. I noticed this morning that his metal bus has a see through roof constructed entirely of scotch tape.
Charles is also exploring drawing, mostly in monochrome red these days. He will sometimes draw literally a dozen pictures and then give them to Mom or Dad. Sometimes they are taped together as well, to make them extra special. Charles made a just such a drawing for me this morning.
(Note the tear on the right. That’s from Charles trying to get the paper off the pad. Oh, the screams he made when it tore as it he was taking it off!)
After pondering the work, I asked Charles about his artistic intent and the conversation went something like this:
Dad: Charles, what is this?
Charles: A picture.
Dad: Is it a helicopter?
Charles: No, it a picture.
Dad: I thought it was a helicopter over a train track.
Charles. No, it not a helicopter, it a picture!
Dad: But what it is a picture of?
Charles: [pauses in thought] … It just a picture.
Abstract art. Yet another thing that’s obvious to the younger generation but beyond an old fogey like me.