Paper

I only remember one time when Joseph drew on something he shouldn't. One day I opened up an alphabet board book and found a bit of pen on the first few pages. "No no no," I told him. "We only draw on paper. Just paper."

After that, he would point to his pen marks whenever we read the book and say "No no no just paper" soberly. And that was the end of it.

Yesterday, I found Matthew taking a marker to the cover of that same alphabet book. I sighed as I took the marker away. It would wash off easily from that type of book, but my "no no no"s hadn't sunk in just yet.

He has recently become obsessed with coloring, yelling "Paper!"whenever he sees Joseph coloring and insisting on joining in. Even when Joseph isn't doing it, he still spontaneously finds the markers and paper so he can color.

Of course, markers and toddlers aren't a super great combination, especially once the toddler figures out how to open the markers. There's been nothing too serious, but I have definitely found some artwork on the floor that isn't supposed to be there. (It's always funny the moment you realize that what you are hearing is the sound of silence . .  . which is a pretty suspicious sound with a toddler.)

So, I tried my "No no no. Just paper," approach with him. He seemed to get it. "Just paper. Just paper." Then when I asked him to get a diaper he instead got a marker and scribbled on the floor again. "Paper. Paper. Paper," he said, pointing at it. He liked mopping it up with me, but didn't really seem to get it, so all the markers got moved up to the top shelf of the desk. (Except the ones I somehow overlooked. So that explains the board book.)

I started to suspect that his "Just paper" didn't mean the same thing as my "Just paper." It seemed like a lot more things fit into his definition of paper than actual paper, and the primary requirement was that it needed to have scribbles on it first. This was confirmed when Kevin was getting him out of his car seat this weekend. "Paper!" he said happily as he pointed to his leg. He had been scratching it a little bit and left a little design. Naturally, it was now paper.

So I guess he's been obeying me all along.