Monster Truck 2

"What should we do today?"

"Good timing. I just had an idea." Under his breath in a low whisper, he debated with himself, "I'm not going to say it. Okay, I'm going to say it. I'm not going to say it. Okay, just say it." He took a deep breath and asked, "Another monster truck?" He looked up at me, "Is that okay?"

Yesterday we went back and forth about choosing new things instead of repeats of past items. I was going to say, "I've already done a monster truck," but figured we could find something pretty different than the last one. "Depends on the monster truck," I told him.

"Is this really hard? Because it looks good to me."

"I'll try," I said, feeling some tension building in my neck already.

"Yeah!" he shouted with glee.

This one came out better than the last monster truck. The only thing I wasn't happy with is where I placed "Victor." 

When he saw the finished drawing, he said, "I like it." He studied it and added, "But why didn't you put my letters on the teeth?" I guess he didn't like the placement of his name either.

"I don't know," I said with a shrug.

He brought this one home today. He seems to really like monster trucks. It might be time to go to another rally. What I remember most about the last one is how loud it was. This time we'll bring earplugs.

Monster Truck

Monster Truck

He picked a monster truck today because we had seen his friend's bag with a monster truck on it yesterday. It was cool to see that other parents had gotten into the act of drawing. What's more, the drawings weren't half bad. The monster truck in fact was especially good.

He said to me yesterday that he knew I would draw a better monster truck. I didn't. But as I drew it he came over and said, "Your monster truck is starting to look cool daddy!" I don't like it too much as I struggled to get the perspective and depth to look right. But he liked it nonetheless and I was happy that he didn't think of our drawings as a competition with other parents'.

Maybe a rocket

Maybe a rocket

"Lunch bag today is going to be...maybe a rocket!"

Sounded good to me. It wasn't easy for me to get this one to look like the picture and I had to compromise detail since I didn't have a lot of time this morning.

"Great daddy! I love it!"

That was nice to hear because I didn't love it myself.

When we got to school today, his friend ran up to him and yelled, "Victor look!"

The friend's dad had drawn a school bus in Sharpie on his lunch bag! Today was a field trip day and all the kids were asked to bring their lunch in a disposable bag.

The father came up to me. "My son keeps telling me about Victor's lunch bags. He asked me to draw something for him this morning. I had to draw something!"

I smiled and looked around the playground. Sure enough I spotted two other sacks with drawings on them. One had a cool monster truck drawn in silver marker and another white sack had colorful drawings all over it.

I hadn't realized that other parents might be getting requests from their kids. Pretty cool to know that our little project has inspired others to add some creativity to their mornings too!