helping your toddler to color and draw

It is amazing how providing SuperBoy with the tools and toys of drawing have ignited his imagination. He drew a circle for the first time the other week with a close family friend’s help. And then he did an oval on his own. It’s a pretty wild oval, but it’s still in the family of circle, right? Now he loves to draw circles all day long–on his easel, with sidewalk chalk, on the walls of the tub with his washable crayons! Between his easel and these baseball cards my mom got for him–he’s all set! He likes to separate them into matching piles, and call out which are which. He asks for his “baseball guys” all the time. He even wants to nap with them. And I’ve learned what a “balk” is. The morale of this little story: spend a few minutes, and reap a few hours. Just by investing time and effort into teaching your child something that’s amusing and informative to them, you give them such a gift! And then they self entertain, so you can go clean the blanket your infant had a poopfest on because you thought diaper-free time was a charitable gesture!