Live Art: Little Indian

I have always heard, “Kids are fast…” Yeah, I know they are. I know that in a blink of an eye a crawler can be out the back door or a walker running into the pool. I am the Mom and have eyes everywhere. I plan for it and I can see it happen before one of you boys takes the first creep into danger. But being Mom is like any other job and we error. We get comfortable. We make expensive mistakes with our commodities ie children.

Today was one of those days I was too comfortable; and I let the eyes on the back of my head rest. Kaden and I sat at the table coloring away with his washable ink pens. Mr. Sprite was army crawling about all over the floor. As Kade and I were coloring I needed to go to the bathroom. I jumped down, kissed him and reminded him to color only on the paper and up the stairs I went. It doesn’t take very long to go to the bathroom, wash hands and return. I come down and turn into the kitchen and I gasp so deeply I have feel light headed. I have no words.

My hands slap my face and cover my mouth. I hear Kaden in the background being my copy cat and gasping exactly the same as I had. I feel my eyes burning realizing I have no blinked as I am staring down at Ashton who is colored in red marker. He has red marker in his nostrils, under his armpits, colored eyelids, coating his palms, along his ribs and three horizontal lines like an Indian from his lips to cheeks. He was a canvas of Kaden’s work. He has taken live art to a whole other level. I observed and stared taking in everything I was seeing. I was stunned. The first words I said, “Jesus God. You are not fast. You are high-speed Guinness Book material.”

Washable marker my ass! That business barely came off the kitchen floor. My infant was traumatized in the bath from the force of my firm washing to erase the marks. He is crying. I am telling Kaden he should be the one getting brutally cleaned. I kept rubbing and raking across his soft skin not knowing if the ink was being removed or it was his skin reddening due to my rubbing. When all was done I am laughing. I have no idea how I am going to survive these two boys.

I removed the markers. They are hidden. Our little Indian has recovered. Kade is definitely not a student of Van Gough or Dali. He is much more chaotic like Picasso. For now we will steer his creativity to paper letting him explore live art later. I don’t want to squelch what may be a new surrealist approach in painting or art. After all, who knows? His talent may keep me comfortable in my old age.