New Friends!

April 10, 2007

Tiny had some visitors today. Some previously unknown - to us! - friends of hers stopped by for a quick, unannounced visit.

These were her pretend friends!

This was the first time she's ever mentioned the existence of any pretend friends. She was so excited when she announced that they had arrived. Melissa was uncertain as to how many stopped by, but Tiny explained that one of them -- the "spooky" animal -- didn't feel comfortable being with the group and went upstairs to be alone. Meanwhile, downstairs, Tiny performed a number of tricks to the amazement of her little pals. They stayed only briefly -- about 15 minutes -- then departed. We're hoping that the spooky animal left with the rest of the bunch.

After our evening walk, Tiny helped me try to establish grass in some of the front lawn's bare spots. She did a fine job of scooping bagged topsoil with her orange, plastic shovel and depositing the small mounds carefully in the exact spots to which I had pointed. Watching the two of us scraping, shoveling, and tossing out seed was a solitary toad who seemed intrigued enough with our activity to simply stay put and monitor our progress. From time to time, Tiny would poke at him with an aluminum tent stake to prompt him to hop a bit. His hops produced gleeful squeals from her every time!

After dinner, she and I sat down for an advanced art session. She loves watercolor painting, so we brought out a new set of watercolors. Tonight I suggested that she draw an image of her choice -- an animal, of course! --with a crayon and then paint the hand-drawn figure. She didn't need much convincing once I stated that this is the technique used by real artists. She went on to draw and paint a handful of multi-colored watercolor animals.