Perspectives From the Esplanade

Now before I tell you this and you think I'm some kind of wonderful, I have to tell you that every single day someone says to me, "I don't know how you do it with five kids!"  And I think to myself, "it depends on what you mean by 'doing it'," as I have shameful flashbacks of knee-jerk parenting moments.  You and I, we are both 'doing it', with our happy times and our hard times and our lives stuffed full, and we ebb and flow.  If I blogged more and wasn't so newly birthed out of crisis and survival, this blog would probably be a little more well-rounded.  Sheesh-- I don't know how bloggers do it!  Anyway...

Today, I don't know what came over me, maybe the lovely weather, maybe knowing David wouldn't be home until late...but I felt like after school we needed to go down to the Eastbank Esplanade and paint together instead of rushing home to do chores.  Korah still chose to do homework, and Noble was parked in the stroller with an apple, but the rest of us got a little rectangle of paper and "15 minutes" (it was more) to make some art.

Morgen painted a bug she had seen and showed me on the walk out, Noble's apple core, and (of course) a rainbow.  Micah painted some beautiful colors before he accidentally dropped his painting over the railing and it floated down onto the bank of the Willamette.  I told him some guy will probably pick it up and use it to make his home beautiful, so without even meaning to, he's probably going to make someone really happy!

Taylor took his card and went a ways off to draw, then came back to use the watercolors.  It turns out he and I painted the same thing:

Steamboat, by Taylor

Str. Portland, by Mommy

 He, of course, thinks mine is better.  I, of course, disagree entirely.  I love his color saturation.  I love how he did the whole thing without hesitation.  He works with confidence, sees what he sees and lays it down.  I love that we did this together.

On the way back, Micah pointed out the water reflecting wavy on the concrete wall under the bridge.  He said, "the sun and the water make that!"  I stopped to look, and it was beautiful!  A thing architects might try to imitate.  And I thought about how glad I was to be taking this time to intentionally see the world through my kids' eyes.  I came home and found this quote, and I couldn't agree more...

"Arguably, no artist grows up: If he sheds the perceptions of childhood, he ceases being an artist."  

--Ned Rorem, American Composer