Yesterday evening we returned from a meeting at church, had dinner, and Eli demanded that we go outside and eat a popsicle. Once outside he quickly abandoned the popsicle in favor of drawing with chalk on the driveway.

“Draw me!” he said.

So I proceeded to draw a stick figure with a wild mane of hair.

“NO! Draw ME!!” he said again as he flopped down on the driveway spread-eagled.

The light click on over my head as I realized he wanted me to trace around his whole body.

We did one, then another, and then another. As soon as one would be finished, he’d leap up and careen to another section of concrete. He never did get the hang of spreading his arms and legs way out, so each time I’d have to remind him to spread out so he wouldn’t be a blob. Pretty soon there were six blue and green Eli’s cart-wheeling their way up and down the driveway.

Then I started writing his name inside the shapes.

“E-L-I!! Eli!!” He chanted as we filled in all the bodies. Or, alternately, “Do the next one! Put E-L-I right here!”

After that, I decided they should all be connected with dotted lines (to emphasize the cart-wheeling aspect) so I started back down the driveway doing that.

Once I finished that project, I decided to sit because, man, all that stooping over is hard on an adult.

After all that work, he went up and down the driveway singing, “Well, you walk and you walk and you walk and you STOP!” The stopping came with wild out-flung arms and stop hands at each of the chalk Elis. He’d look at me until I said, “Go!” and then he’d sing until the next outline. He probably made 10 or 15 circuits of the outlines.

The light started fading so we gathered up our chalk and headed inside for clean-up and bath. I snuck outside this morning though to talk some photos of our masterpiece: