Family Portraits

In children's church Sunday morning, we were talking about how God takes care of families as families take care of one another.  And, of course, we had to make Father's Day cards.  I asked the kids to draw pictures of their families inside the cards to try to tie the cards into the story concept. 

As I gave the assignment and was helping the kids get started, I realized I had never taught Steven the idea of drawing a stick person.  How we never managed that with all the drawing and writing he's been doing lately, I'll never know.  Not able to spend much time on it since I was teaching an entire class - yet also wanting him to be able to participate (and wanting to avoid his frustration over me not helping him do it perfectly) - I drew his first stick person and told him to copy that for the rest of the family.  Steven loves circles and lines of any sort, so this was right up his alley!  He copied my stick person superbly and then went on to make stick people of all sizes to complete the family.  (Olivia, by the way, was the smallest child!  Steven laughed and laughed over that one - he thought it was the best joke!)

Since then, he has grown fascinated with drawing stick families - always our family.  He takes great pleasure in altering the sizes of each of the family members, too. The one thing that I'm not quite sure about, though, is that every one of his stick families has four children.  We asked him about it on Monday. 

Mommy & Daddy: "Steven, why are there four kids in your picture?"

Steven: "Oh, that's the baby."

Mommy & Daddy: "The baby?"

Steven: "Yes. (Then, rather emphatically...) The baby brother!"

Mommy & Daddy: "But we don't have a baby brother."

Steven: "I know.  But, I like to draw one."

There is no indication that he wants a baby brother - just that he wants to draw one.  I'm not sure I want to know...