Superman

"What should we do today?"

"A birthday cake!" he exclaimed, "Because it's your birthday!" He must have seen the puzzled look on my face because he added, "...if you want to."

"I don't really want to, no," I said. I didn't like the idea of my birthday cake on his snack sack. And in any event, my birthday had already passed.

"Okay, you get to choose then for your birthday."

"Hmm. I get to choose?"

"Yup."

I got started without telling him what I was drawing.

"Ooh, what are you going to draw?" he asked walking over to my side of the table to check it out. "Ooh, Superman!"

I worked quickly and was putting on the finishing touches, adding the stars in the sky, by the time he finished his breakfast.

He asked, "Can I draw a big shooting star?"

"Sure," I said, handing over the sack and the Sharpie.

The marker squeak loudly the moment he started drawing his first line. "Don't press so hard!" I reminded him.

He drew his shooting star, the marker squeaking with every stroke, then put the Sharpie down.

"Well here's a bunch of open space. You can fill that in too," I said pointing at the sky.

"With what?"

"Stars and circles."

"How about an alien?"

"Do it!"

"Ooh, maybe a comet."

"Nice!"

He drew it all and announced, "All done."

The Big Bang!

The Big Bang!

"What did you draw yesterday?" he asked me.

I pointed to the cabinet.

"Oh yeah," he said. "Do you think you can draw this?" he asked pointing to a self made book he brought home from school yesterday. It was about LEGOs and had a very complex drawing full of lines and squiggles on the cover.

"That'd be pretty hard for me to do. It's your drawing. Maybe you could do it."

He considered taking over the snack sack duties for a moment, but dismissed the idea, "Instead, I want a rainbow slinky."

"I don't do my drawings in color remember."

"You know who the first two people on Earth were?" he said abruptly changing the course of our morning.

"Who?"

"God and another person," he said with a nod, his eyes full of pride, "and they were there to see The Big Bang!" Just a few moments later he thought better of his declaration, "No. The Big Bang happened way before there were people...millions of years ago right?" He corrected himself without waiting for my response, "No, billions of years ago actually."

"Okay, what should we put on the snack sack?" I asked a little impatiently. He is so cute when he gets all chatty, but sometimes he needs a push to decide on something. He looked at me blankly. "Something about space since you were talking about The Big Bang?" I suggested.

"Yes! That's what I was going to say. The Big Bang!"

"Um, that's going to be hard," I said recoiling. "There are no drawings of The Big Bang." But the idea intrigued me so I went searching for images.

I had to concentrate a lot on this one. It was tough to keep the dots and lines uniform and well spaced. It was easy to start to get lazy but I did my best to keep the lines as straight as possible. I did not want to use a ruler. He wanted to add his name even though I had already added it. I was happy with the end result and was worried that he'd mess it up. But in the end, he just wanted his letters to be "pushed out" by the invisible force of the explosion. This is one of my favorites and definitely one of his as well.

Victor's Observatory

Victor's Observatory

I can't recommend Griffith Park and Griffith Observatory enough. We had a blast there this past weekend. The planetarium show at the observatory was by far the best I've ever seen. It had all the charm of a classic planetarium show from my childhood and all the awesomeness of a modern dome theater with digital projection and sound. And that's not to mention the great exhibits, easy hike, the beautiful views of the city of angels at sunset, and the endless rows of the city's lights at night. It was almost good enough for me to forgive the overcast night that robbed us from viewing an amazing meteor shower.

Today, I didn't ask him what he wanted me to draw because I knew what I wanted to draw. For some reason, however, I struggled with this one. I threw away two bags before I got the proportions right. And that's something I've almost never done. In fact, I've surprised myself using a Sharpie and not having to start over. It took longer than I would have guessed, but I finally got the proportions worked out okay. It's not my favorite drawing but I am happy to have captured a wonderful memory on this sack.

I wasn't sure if he liked it, but he must have because this one came home today after school.