Do you recall your art easel?

Do you remember your art easel? I always wanted you to enjoy a broad range of experiences growing up so that you would have a lot of different interests and find out what you most liked to do. So for Christmas I purchased the art easel for you.

After setting it up, your first experience with it was painting with watercolors. You liked to hold the paint brush over the carpet, though, and the paints would drip, creating a mess! So after that, I pretty much limited the easel to colors, markers and colored pencils.

The easel had a neat paper roll on it. After we used up one side, I unwound it and rerolled it so you could use the other side!

Remember seeing an 'ugly car'?

When you were just a year old, I started teaching you colors. One of the ways I did that was to point out the colors of cars in parking lots when we passed them. You learned the colors pretty quickly that way.

Sometimes, though, you'd see a rare color that I hadn't taught and then would point at the car to ask me what it was. I'd say something like "That's a beige car" or "That's a turquoise car." You'd then repeat the color aloud to me.

Once you pointed at a PT Cruiser (see picture at above right), and in an attempt to be snarky, I responded "That's an ugly  car." So you said back to me, "Ugly!"

After that, everytime we saw a PT Cruiser, you'd say, "Look Dad, an ugly car!"

What’s your favorite color?

More than three months have now passed since your mother has let me see or speak with you. I find myself wondering how you've changed during that time - Are you taller? Have you lost your first tooth? What new books have you read? What is your favorite color?

When you were a toddler and during most of your preschool years, green was your favorite color. I'm not certain why. Perhaps since we lived in the desert, green was a rare color and so the novelty excited you or the prettiness of some places we visited where green was omnipresent (like the mountains or ocean coast) left an impression. But if given a choice of clothing, Matchbox cars or some other item, you inevitably picked the green one!

Once you turned four and started attending preschool, blue because your favorite color. Again, not certain why, though I'd agree with your taste for blue is my favorite color, too! And perhaps not as much with green, if given a choice of clothing or toy, you inevitably picked the blue one!

What is your favorite today?