November 07, 2009

learning... faces


i love first faces.
i love lots and lots of hair.
i love how the face is the whole body.
i love the dot noses and eyes. 
(there are no freckles on first faces, every dot has a meaning, sometimes they have lots and lots of eyes or noses, just because they're fun to draw) 
i love the legs coming out the chin. 
(they look like teeth, but the experienced eye knows they are legs) 
i love BIG smiles and tiny eyes.
growing... learning... becoming... 
love it.

note: the bigger girls were home when leah was drawing her first faces... they began to TEACH and correct her first faces. Ellie added an ear... i knew that first faces don't have ears... they have ARMS coming out where the ears are. i had to explain to the girls that our role is to encourage and praise.  as a young mother i learned that if you push a child into developing, they become self-conscious and insecure.  the more confidant they feel in their ability the more they will 'practice' and the quicker they will develop.  so, my older girls, my young mothers-in-training, learned an important lesson that afternoon.  NEVER correct first faces.  Just find the nose-dot and praise the nose... find the legs coming out the chin and praise the legs...  love the hair that goes all the way around...  in my home... there will be NO ear drawing.  At least for a few weeks.  We trust... with more and more faces, the ears will come. And someday, on a quiet afternoon, after minutes of praising, i might say something like, "ooooo, i love his big smile... he can talk good.  how does he hear?"  quickly, ears will be added and confidance will be increased.  and, when that happens there is a joy for ears, but a sadness for the arms that used to come where the ears now are.  seriously, i LOVE first faces.

5 comments:

Tiffany said...

I know you love the first faces... but I love your perspective & the whole description in the "note" section... I love that you are reveling in the moment.

beckyjune said...

I love this, Jen, and I can wholeheartedly relate because we have so many of those moments around here. My girls LOVE LOVE LOVE to draw, it's something they do every single day, and it's the reason I have piles and piles of paper everywhere because I just can't bear to throw away those masterpieces. It's the reason you can't see the front of our refrigerator and why our walls are covered. You really do have to enjoy the legs coming out of the chins because pretty soon they get it figured out and you do miss those early pictures.

Rebekah said...

Such a simple thing, but so touching--since all of us have seen those first faces.
I tell the same thing to my boys about Gabriel's "cute words"--you know when they say something in an adorably wrong way over and over. Eli and Adam get in big trouble when they correct or tease about it, because I know that one day they will all be speaking "correctly" and I will long for a cute little, "Mom, I just can't find they. Can you find they for me?"

Leah said...

I still remember the day when I realized that legs didn't come right out of the head when drawing. Next drawings of people look like snowmen with two (or three or four) circles with lots of limbs stemming off. SO cute!

corrie said...

I love first faces, too. I'm so glad Erin likes to draw. It is Awesome watching her figure out how to make something look right to her. I LOVE kid drawings.

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