Best. Drawing. EVER!!!

Coco may be experiencing her first Manic burst tonight.  She got a new haircut that she was pretty freaked out about at first, but apparently had some kind of crack-infused hair tonic or something.


After dinner she told me her teacher told her to draw a flying mustache.  I told her that sounded like an awesome idea.  A few minutes later she came downstairs to ask me to draw, "a half sun, some clouds and a flying mustache."


...


"Aren't you supposed to draw the flying mustache?" I ask.
"Well, I'm not very good at drawing them," she told me.


So, after figuring out that "a half sun" is a sun that is not all the way on the page, but is kind of taking up one corner of the page, I drew said sun, two fluffy clouds, "oooh, you're good at that!", and a handlebar mustache floating in the air.


As she was leaving I told her, "You know, mustaches aren't just shapes like that.  They're a whole bunch of hairs all going in one direction that make up a shape of a mustache."  Then I showed her a little example, and beyond all of my expectation, she came up with a good looking flying mustache.  Along with some other items you may have noticed.

• The Pigeon (from the Mo Willems series)
• An ice cream truck with a little kid getting his ice cream from the Ice Cream Man
• a can of Coca Cola, and I don't know if you can tell, but there's a picture of a guy holding a coke can on the can, and on that can is a picture of a guy holding a coke can... (we had that conversation.  I may have prompted it, but she took it and RAN)
• A dog on top of the coke can.  It's dancing.
• An alien baby.
• A baby elephant alien (me - where are its ears? Coco - those lines on its head are the ears. me - oh, right.
• A rocket ship. I must admit that was my idea when she asked, what else should I draw? me - a plane? Coco - ... me - a rocket ship? Coco - AWESOME!!!
• A flying bird
• A multi-colored, polka dotted Panda Bear (R may have come up with that one, actually.  She may have even drawn it, but if so it's an uncredited appearance.)

Right, so this drawing, along with the house she created for her new neighbor, Fred, the albino rubber ducky, ("he's going to live right next to me!!!") seems to have all come from the same source of creative energy that is still surging through the house right now. Here's Fred - 

A little bit about Fred's house, if you'll indulge me.  It's an old gift box that's probably leftover from when GQ and I had our Yellow Dog Folk Art gift store (that's another story from a long time ago).  She's decorated it and came to me to ask me to cut the door so Fred could go inside. We had to make some adjustments b/c Fred is actually bigger than you'd think.  So, after door cutting her final request was for a mail slot ("so I can leave him messages!" there are a lot of exclamation marks being thrown around the Benefield House tonight). Mail slot cut ("it can also be a window!!!")


So, this drawing.  "The Best I've EVER Drawn!!!" will hopefully make it's way to the Morning News at our beloved school.  Our school has a live daily news broadcast where a drawing is showcased during Opening Music, The Moment of Silence, and Closing Music.  Good stuff.


My fear of course is the crash that comes after a Manic burst.  We'll see.  Tomorrow will be here before I know it.