Art imitates life -- mostly

My mom loves to tell the story about a picture I drew in kindergarten. We were supposed to draw our family, the people who lived in our house. I drew me, my mom, my dad, my sister, my brothers, our dog and an uncle.

Except none of my uncles ever lived with us. When my mom asked me why I drew him in there, I apparently said: "Because I wasn't done drawing yet."

Yesterday, when I dropped Sam off at day care, I picked out her cubby a picture she drew several weeks ago of her family.

It's an impressive, comical interpretation of us: There's Sam, with long purple hair sticking straight up. There's me, with a big head and messy red hair that includes some sticking up. There's Daddy, who for some reason has, like, nine legs. And there's our cat, Jack-Jack, who is orange with what I'm assuming is a long tail, and Sam and I are holding him.

And then there's Pop, who is my father-in-law. In this picture, Pop is very faint -- Sam drew him in yellow -- and you'd think Pop was a nickname for "lollipop" because he's got a head and a body, but no arms or legs.

Pop has never lived with us. In fact, he doesn't ever stay at our house for more than a couple hours in a row. My mother-in-law, however, will come and stay with us for a week at a time. Any sign of Nana in the picture? No way.

I've decided not to dwell on it. If Sammy put Pop in the picture, maybe she just wishes he were in the picture, so to speak, more often.

Instead, I -- being one of those parents who believe everything my kid does means she's a child prodigy in it -- am massively excited by how much her artist skills have grown in just a few months. In August, she drew a picture she said was of her, Daddy and me, and it was just squiggles. In this picture, though, you can see the general shape of people, even if they have too many or too few appendages.

Anybody know how old Picasso was when he created his first masterpiece?

What do your kids like to draw? What did they surprise you by drawing?