Friday, October 12, 2012

A surprise for me

When I came home from work the kids greeted me with their cheery voices: mama, mama we have a surprise for you.
What could it be? I wondered.  After all they were away for almost a week driving across the country from Omaha back home to Phoenix with their dad.  Maybe they picked up a lonely rock from a rest stop somewhere in the middle of the country and they now want to give it to me as a surprise.  Maybe it's a piece of candy they thought to save and share it with me. 
I ran upstairs where the surprise was supposed to be and they leaded me into my bedroom.
My jaw dropped, in awe, or shock or.....I am not sure, but I had no clue how to react and was speechless.
The surprise:
The two walls on each side of my bed covered in drawing some with washable, some with permanent markers.  A mural 7 feet wide and as tall as their hands could reach. Drawings of us: Maggie, Patrick, David, me, our house, angry birds......
My cell phone camera is unable to capture it in one image, and these pictures can't really show how big these drawings are. 

1. Our house.  To give you an idea the house in this image is about 2 feet tall.

2. David and Patrick.  The big figure is David, the small one is Patrick. 

3. Maggie's drawing of herself and me holding hands.  And then there is a tiney-tiny figure on the other side of me that she called my baby.  Hmmm, no I am not pregnant, although I occasionally secretly wish I have another baby.

4. This is the best I could do to capture it all in one photo from the side to help you imagine how big this is.  7ft my friends, 7 feet......

So I sat on my bed marveling it all, trying to figure out how to respond.  At first I wanted to think: 'my walls, oh my walls they need to be repainted'.  Should I be angry?  But I wasn't angry at all.  I couldn't help but think how excited they were that they wanted to surprise me with their handy work.
So when Patrick said to me: 'what ya thinking mom?' I said: I LOVE IT.
And they both went on explaining what everything is in their artwork.

2 comments:

Terri said...

So what are you going to do? Hide all the markers. Reprint one wall with chalkboard paint. Get lots of chalk. Sounds like fun!

Vesna said...

Terri, for now I will just leave it as is. My entire house needs repainting anyway. Their work keeps expanding and slowly having its mark in every room. So in a few years when they are a little bit older, guess who's going to help me paint the walls? What I keep thinking is that had I done that when I was their age, I would be in a whole lot trouble and the walls would have been repainted by now.
It's very nice to wake up and open my eyes to their artwork and it was meant for me.