The Human Body as Art

In keeping with the designing theme from last night and Leighanne's desitin creation, tonight we'll discuss my children's other artistic talents.

Throughout the years, we've had multiple infractions involving markers, crayons, pens, and various "canvases" composed mostly of walls, baseboards, carpet, tables, bricks on the house, and the focus of tonight's blog: the human body.

Olivia and I have been studying Michaelangelo and his amazing understanding of the human body.

He actually went to a morgue and studied the bodies (inside and out...disgusting) in order to better sculpt every tendon, vein, and joint. I've kind of edited some of our studies of the sculpture, "David". Sometimes more detail is not a good thing.

I am wondering if discussing the human body as art has been a bad idea. This afternoon, I was sitting on the couch in the playroom when in ran a giggling six-year-old holding a red dry erase marker in her hand.

This is NEVER good. NEVER. There are no exceptions whatsoever. No clauses, no addendums...you get it, this is bad news. I feared the worst.

Raising my eyebrow and transforming into stern mother mode, I immediately began questioning the suspect.

"What have you been doing?"

Laughter was my response. Total unbridled, snorting laughter.

Crap.

"What did you draw on? Where did you use that marker?" I demanded to know, fear welling up in my heart for my brand new chair in the family room, which would most definitely NOT hide red marker very well.

And at that very moment, as if they'd choreographed the entire thing, in waltzed my little nudist. Sometimes I think you guys are under the impression I exaggerate my blog. Surely no one's household could be this full of, um, 'adventures', for lack of a better term. But folks, I kid you not. Again, I cannot show you all the photos I took because of that pesky child decency act, but I will try to give you an adequate run down of the scene before me.

Here she was, twirling in like a naked ballerina, looking like she'd escaped from that reality tattoo show called, "Ink". She was pretty much covered from head to toe in red marker designs, her crazy curly hair flying wildly as she spun herself around, laughing with delight.

Here are a few of the pictures I can show you. These were not doctored or enhanced in any way:

We'll start with her feet. I know they look weird, like she has elephantiasis or something on her ankles, but it's just the way her legs were resting on the arm of the chair.

You've seen the men who get tattoos of their girlfriend's name?

Leighanne was sporting the names of her entire family, including the dog, all on her left arm.

Her legs:

Some kind of abstract art. Can't quite make it out.

This was the sweet little face filled with glee at her antics with Lauren:

Glasses. The mustache was a nice touch in adding to the sophisticated, intelligent look they were going for, don't you think?

But this one, this is the one that made me downright scared for a moment.

Her tummy said, "This is a boy". I was trying to prepare myself for what my six-year-old might have deemed appropriate to draw on the southern hemisphere of my naked child. Good grief, we're a little young for anatomy lessons, aren't we? For Pete's sake, where in the world had she learned anything about that?!

But much, MUCH to my great relief, all that had been drawn down there was a peace sign. Her rear end sported a matching peace sign which was jiggling all around as she hopped and pranced before me (I feel like I've written something quite similar to this very recently. Oh yes, that's BECAUSE I DID. The nudity is getting out of hand.).

So to review, the girls are now on total marker probation indefinitely. We add that to the running list which also includes scissors, bubble gum (because last week I found a chewed up piece smashed into the top of my dresser), desitin, and toothpaste (you'd be surprised what destructive things you can do with toothpaste).

Of course, all good things must eventually come to an end. I found her half an hour later fast asleep.

Well, at least it wasn't my furniture or walls this time. I suppose I should shut up and be grateful for improvement. Baby steps.