Embracing the creative

Monday afternoon was nice and cool so Cady and I played outside for a little bit. She loves drawing these days (on non-paper surfaces too, I must add) so we had out the sidewalk chalk. I've been trying to get her to work on some of her letters because I'm me. Sometimes she'll appease me, but she didn't really feel like letting me pushing her to draw letters (or, more accurately, the letters that involve straight lines joined together in various capacities) Monday afternoon. She had something else in mind. She decided to draw a chrysalis. Yes, a chrysalis. I was amazed.

We've been reading Clara Caterpillar a lot lately, which may be where she learned the word, but I think they've been talking about caterpillars and butterflies at school a lot too. She told me about how she had to make her chrysalis big and colorful so that she could climb inside of it. She was so proud. I just sat and watched her and listened to her talk about what she was making and what she was going to do when it was finished. She took her creation of said chrysalis quite seriously. She colored and colored and colored. And then she climbed "inside" of it, spread out her little body on the sidewalk, and closed her eyes before jumping out of it as a new butterfly.

We played a game where she came out of the chrysalis and flew to me and then around the sidewalk. I even made up some rhymes/songs. It was lots of fun. Eventually she even let me help color her chrysalis some more (though she was quite particular about how and where I could color...wonder where she gets that from?). Her chrysalis was beautiful. I didn't take a picture, but I should. It's still there...a big, oblong mess of colors not nearly big enough to fit her body except in her imagination. It's perfect.

And, I'm super proud of my big girl for refusing to draw letters just because that's what I wanted her to do. It was a wonderful reminder that she's her own little person and that that's a good thing.