These two little dolls watch me from a potato dish as I sit and draw or write.  They make me smile, especially the one with the dirty face, little orphan in a potato – I like his smug expression.  They are both from England, and only 2 inches tall, at the most.  I haven’t been doing much art – working on a big painting – but it takes me a long time to finish these larger canvases, especially now because I am preparing for a visit from my favorite real live baby, my grandson, who is now 19 months old! 

He is getting to be a real boy these days… T-ball, climbing anything in sight, talking about “big trucks,”  “big animals,”  “big jumps,”  which his mother would rather he didn’t do – but he is so convinced he’s quite capable to leaping through the air!

 He loves to read and look at books, and if you stop by and see this post, Valerie Greeley, his favorite two books are the ones I purchased last Christmas from you.  He is very fond of the bunnies in the snow and likes to return to that page over and over again.  I think it is really important to give children good art in their books – and Valerie Greely at Acornmoon – there’s a link on my side bar – she does the most beautiful watercolor pages in her books, with sweet animals and wildlife on every page.  They are very beautiful, and my grandson sneaks up a carefully improvised ladder to reach them from the top of his dresser where his mother trys to keep them out of harms way. But she found him sitting happily on top of the dresser a few days ago, quietly reading about the little bunnies in the snow.

I am so looking forward to spending time with him – I’m sure he has changed since I saw him in February when we had some great conversations about all the little birds in the trees, getting ready for bed, and the owl just waking up to fly through the night sky – and we sang to the moon, and watched the stars,  and we whispered in the dark outside about the coyote and the raccoon, and tried to hear the coyotes calling to each other.  It was more fun than I’d had in a long time, mostly because he was so engaged in these simple conversations between us about the earth and how much must care for it, just as we care for each other.  So I am anxious to see if he will be ready for more in the night talks on the front porch were we can see the stars and the moon.  After each of his visits I am convinced I want to write a little book about our visits and conversations with nice simple watercolor illustrations.  But somehow I never get to it.

This was taken a year ago on his first visit to Mimi — he seems such a baby then, only 8 months old, so may things he didn’t know, and now he seems so much older and capable of figuring this world out a little bit.  We are going to visit the High Dessert Museum to see the animals, I know he will like that.  We might even toss a few balls at the Fun Zone – even though its for bigger boys – he would love to toss the balls., and of course daily visits to the park.  I wish I lived at the coast so I could take him walking on the beach and show him that whole world (my favorite).  But in the meantime I have been encouraging the blue jays to come up to the porch to get a peanut, and I think he will enjoy that and walking by the river.  So I guess whether its real little boys or tiny potato dwelling little boys – they are all sweet and bring a smile to this old face.  See you friends in a couple of weeks!

Olivia aka Mimi