This is a drawing Kyle made of our family. I’m not sure who’s who, but I can bet that one of the two frowning faces is me. In fact, I’m probably the left-most face with the angry green specter above my head. This picture stopped me in my tracks when Kyle showed it to me, and I vowed to smile more. I’d like him to think of me that way.
Edited to update: at my lone commenter’s suggestion, I showed Kyle this picture and asked him what was happening in it. He said the smiling figures are Mommy and Daddy. The left squiggly-face is himself when he was sick, and the right frowny face is Brady, who is mad because he’s “in a nap.” The green circle is Kyle’s “rock egg,” which Kyle got at Big Sur when we went camping with Zoe from Suburbia at Large last spring. It’s literally a green, egg-shaped rock, which he of course lost, and clearly misses.
You should ask him about it if he remembers. My youngest drew a picture of the 4 of us parachuting, and the adults were frowning, and the 2 kids were happy.
Unsure of what the symbolism was, I asked the little artist why the grownups were not happy. I thought maybe he thought we were always mad, or had drawn some patricidal drama where our parachutes were not working and we would plunge to our deaths while the boys gleefully watched.
Turned out, the mischievous sprite said we were both sad because our parachutes didn’t have polka dots or diamonds on them like the kids did.
Go figure.