Aside: Anyone else remember that show, Night Gallery?  In equal parts, I loved/was totally creeped out by it as a kid.  Probably the most memorable episode for me at eight- or nine-ish years old was one where some guy hatched a plan to put an earwig into another guy's ear while he slept because he wanted the other guy's beautiful wife.  Then the earwig would lay eggs and the baby earwigs rattle around inside the guy's head and bore holes in his brain and make him slowly go crazy.  To this day, I still can't look at an earwig without thinking of that show. I'm not really a person who freaks out about bugs, but earwigs?  They make my skin crawl.  And I'm almost positive this show is why.

Why I was watching Night Gallery at eight- or nine-ish years old, I cannot tell you.  You could try and blame my parents, but I'm pretty sure it's not something you could pin on them.  I think I was probably the only kid in sixth grade carrying around a collection of Rod Serling's short stories to read for fun.  Arguments could be made that there's a long history to my morbid sense of humor.

Anyhoo...

The Caterpillar (funny, that's the title of that Night Gallery episode) has just recently taken an interest in writing and drawing.  We've been trying to get her to catch up on that front for a year now, but those fine motor skills have been slow to develop and she has been as disinterested as she could be until the last couple of weeks when suddenly, she exploded with creativity.  She began bringing a pencil and a pad of paper with her to school, the car, the bathroom, anywhere she could possibly convince me that it was necessary.  The house is constantly littered with drawings and little scraps of paper because it's not good enough to just draw on the paper, it must also be cut up in tiny slivers and then taped back together with approximately seven miles of Scotch tape, then affixed to some appropriate viewing surface, such as the refrigerator, the shower curtain or the living room floor (which means it will eventually become affixed to the bottom of my foot).

The result of this new found interest in writing is I find scraps of papers with scribbles and drawings everywhere I go.  Yesterday, she disappeared for a long period of time.  Then she appeared with an empty roll of tape, complaining that she couldn't get the tape to come off.  When I went to investigate, I found an entire gallery of drawings taped to my dresser drawers.  

Here are some of the best and what she said about them when we asked.  I think my favorite part about this whole series is the variability of emotions expressed.

They go from the mundane:
:
This is... "a man saying 'Hi.'"

To the specific:

This is... "a flying carpet from the show with the blue man."

To random:

This is... "a lobster."

To fantasy:

This is... "a snake carrying grocery bags."
(I often wish a snake would do my grocery shopping too.  Who doesn't, really?)


To downright bizarre:

This is... "a duck... no... actually it's a walking potato chip."

I sense an exhibit at the Hirshhorn in her future.