Be a Kid for Just a Little Bit Longer!

Mica all the sudden thinks he's too big to be a kid.

For the most part he doesn't want to watch animations. That was a big discussion because Isaak wanted to watch Inside Out, and Mica didn't. We finally convinced him to give it a shot. Then he liked it.

One day a few weeks ago I made each of us a pancake face for breakfast:

Isaak was all excited to eat it. Mica on the other hand said, "Why? I don't want this. I'm too old for this! Dad would not approve." I don't know why Dad was brought up. I do know that he often times doesn't like my artsy food things.

I said, "Mica just roll with it. I'm an adult, and I love my pancake face."

Isaak happily ate his pancake face. Mica all grumpy like shoved the face parts off the pancake with his fork, and ate the pancake. 

I've always wanted my kids to be kids as long as possible.

Picasso Quotes:

It takes a long time to become young.

It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.

Every child is an artist, the problem is staying a child when you grow up.

I do have to say that my kids dressed up in their Halloween costumes longer than most kids. They'd wear them outside. Mica wasn't Mica. He was Captain America, or Indiana Jones... Mica still loves Legos. He asks for toys when holidays come along. He's in 4th grade, but could be a 5th grader (he was 6 when he started school). We've made it this far, and there's still a little boy inside him. 

The Gnomist

I watched this short flick. I know it's 15 minutes, but it's a great 15 minutes! It captures that child within. 

Source

If you don't have time for The Gnoimist watch the intro to To Kill a Mockingbird:

If you don't like black and white any more watch the intro to Amélie:

These are all flicks I show during our Children's book illustration section of my Illustration class.

I gravitate towards children's books, I love food art, being silly is fun, board games are not boring, arts and crafts are wonderful.

What do you like to do that is childlike?

Random Tid Bits

1. I'm going to tell you a little bit about me when I was an itty bitty child. Some claim that I didn't smile until I was 2. I was very shy. In fact I wouldn't order from restaurants until I was in 6th grade.
   
   There is hope for shy people. Now I'm a teacher. I still like quiet time when I get home, but that usually doesn't happen.
   
   I was also bald until I was 2. My baby picture hung in my bedroom, and I tried drawing hair on it.


2. I loved my little sister. Mainly because I could dress her up, and she'd play the part of the baby when we played house. Through her I didn't have to grow up so fast. She is 5 years younger than I am. I played with Barbies and dolls 5 years beyond what most kids did. My mom said I was very good about including her in my play.
   
   The one time I was bad to her was when I was in charge of taking care of her. I made her go to her room, and I tied her door handle, to the bathroom door handle, and lastly to my parent's door handle. She was tied into her room. This is not something I'm proud of. While my friend and I were doing this, my parents caught us in the act. My friend had to go home. Trust me I was much better to her than my older sister was to me.


3. I had 2 pit bulls growing up. They were nice dogs. I hate that their breed gets a bad name because people treat them poorly. They would give us sled rides, play tug of war, fetch, play hide and seek, and let me sleep on their bellies in the sun. Watching them play hide and seek was fun. My Dad would put them downstairs. They knew what it was about, and would bark happy barks. Then he'd hide their treats around the house. They'd come up, and have to find them. 

To this day I feel kind of bad - You see my parents had to get rid of our dogs because of me. I kept having asthma attacks and had huge allergy problems. I was sick all the time. My Dad in particular loved those dogs. They got rid of them, so I would be healthier. So much for having a pet to build up a tolerance.


4. I'm a sleep walker and talker. I shared a bedroom with my sister Angie. She told me that I'd often talk nonsense  in my sleep. Once I must of had a dream about going on a picnic, and rattled off all the things we were bringing. Another time I got up, walked over to my sister's backpack, blew my nose on it, and said, "That feels better."

I'd love to say I grew out of sleep talking and walking. When I was in high school I stayed at a friend's house, and actually got up and left the house in the middle of the night. No worries I came back. As an adult I've had dreams I was a dinosaur, a werewolf, and dragon. Each dream someone was after me. I roared in my dream, which was reality, scared the crap out of Daddy and woke myself up to.


5. Once I almost burnt our childhood house down. My sister Angie got a purple stuffed animal monkey. It was so cute sitting on the top of our reading lamp, so I put it there. My sister complained to our Dad about me having body odor. She kept saying, "I can't go to sleep. She just smells so bad!" He came in the room and smelled all over me. I was playing possum. He said, "Well I smell it, but it's not Alissa." It took him a minute to find out that it was the purple monkey's butt that was nearly on fire. We're lucky it didn't light up in flames. He had a permanently black butt, and had to be thrown out.
   
   What's a childhood memory that you have?