That Monster Thingy

"What should we do today?"

"Remember you said you'd do another Godzilla?"

"We had the conversation yesterday, but I didn't really agree."

"Do you like Godzilla?"

"Not really," I said honestly.

I really don't get the Godzilla craze. I ran a search anyway and handed him my iPhone. He found one he liked and walked over to me. He never does that. "This one is so cool," he said, not showing it to me. He kept embellishing until I asked to see it.

"I can't do that," I told him. He had picked a very complex Godzilla head. It definitely looked cool. I had to agree with him on that. But it was just too intricate for me to try this morning.

"Please, please," he pleaded.

I looked at it more carefully. "It has too much detail," I said. I wasn't trying to get out of it. It really did have too much detail.

"Can you try?"

"Maybe I could make it my own way, but I won't be able to make it like that."

"Can you try?"

"I can try my own way."

He changed his mind abruptly. "How about that monster thingy?"

Before we settled in on the Venus flytrap from a couple of days ago, he had picked a bizarre combination drawing of a scorpion, spider, crab, Venus flytrap, and who knows what else, monster thing. I had said, "No," then, but didn't have any reason to say, "No," today. I redid the Venus flytrap search and found it pretty quickly. The original had boobs and an egg sack in the crotch. He asked me not to do the egg sack because it looked weird. I told him I wouldn't do the top like that either.

"Yeah, I didn't want you to do that either."

It's always difficult for me to draw things that are symmetric, but I did my best.

"Why is it so creepy?" he asked.

"I don't know, but it looks weird."

"It does."

When I was done he said "Nice! Thank you for not doing the nipples and that other thing. I just know that my teacher and my friends are going to like this one."

"How come?" I asked with genuine curiosity. For me, there wasn't much to like.

"Because they both like monsters and stuff."

"Really? Your teacher likes monsters?"

"Yeah. Maybe we can call an art professional to do that Godzilla."

I must admit that I didn't like the demotion nor the notion that someone else could draw something that I couldn't. "I could do it," I assured him, and myself, "It would just take me a long time is all."

"Oh. So, maybe you can do it on the weekend," he suggested.

"Um," I uttered.

"Can you Daddy?"

"Um," I repeated. I wasn't so sure about drawing it on the weekend, but, I told him, "Maybe." And maybe I will...but I doubt it.

Cheese Spider

"What should we try today?"

"This time a Cheese Spider because you did pretty good on the Tacodile."

I had a feeling we'd be sticking with the Foodimals today from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2. Yesterday's was fun to draw and it was no surprise that he wanted the Cheese Spider today. I had to really rush this one and skimp on some of the details in the webbing. I still spent 20 minutes but we got out of the house later than normal as a result.

"What do you think of the Cheese Spider?" I asked him on our way out. 

"It's good...except that it looks like it's freaked out," he said pointing at the eyes. He was right, as always. It did looked freaked out.

This sack came home (all crumpled up). He showed it to me in the afternoon and observed, "This way it looks like it's whining," turning the sack upside down. "This way it looks like it's angry," he said turning it right side up. He kept flipping it back and forth taking in the difference.

He hasn't been bringing the sacks home much lately. Perhaps he brought this one back because we were flipping through our collection and reminiscing before bedtime yesterday. I think taking a trip down Memory Lane made us both more sentimental about our mornings together and the art that we have produced.

Tarantula

This was a very frustrating morning. We got a late start because he overslept and I wasn't strict enough about his wake-up time. I found out a while later that to make the morning even tighter, he fell back asleep after I nudged him awake.

Downstairs, he was extra cranky not just because he was forcibly awakened, but also because he got grounded last night for making the nighttime routine a nightmare. So no TV this morning for him which guaranteed him to be in a sour mood.

I had a lot of household chores to take care of and didn't get down to picking my subject until I had less than 15 minutes before we had to be out of the house. I had planned to draw an ICEE cup since I skipped out on doing so yesterday; but, as I was wondering if I could finish it in time, he jumped in with a new idea.

"Do Prism Break!" he exclaimed with authority. He got some new Skylanders for his birthday on Wednesday. I felt a lot of pressure to get started, but did a quick search and handed him my iPhone. It took him too long, however, to decide on Prism Break vs. other Skylanders that showed up. Plus, there were no good drawing references and it's always harder for me to draw from a photographic reference.

I had to take charge immediately and went to Plan C. With little time left to draw much of anything, I quickly did a search for a tarantula spider drawing. I banged this one out in what little time I had left. I've never felt so much tension trying to produce something decent in such short order. Tomorrow, I'm waking him up early!