I'm not the only one who's been doing some "writing"

Mister and Sweetie have been hard at work on their own creations. And I must admit that their work is much more brilliant and profound than my own, as you can see by this sampling of text:

It's pure genius, isn't it? Another superior attribute of their book is that it has visuals, whereas mine only has a few tables and charts. Notice the map of our house above the text and all of the pictures below. I am looking mighty fine riding Splash Mountain with them, riding scooters with Mister, playing the Ladybug Game, reading to them in bed, and bending over to kiss Mister goodnight. Unfortunately, in the latest additions to the book, I am no longer a stick figure, as can be seen in the drawing on the blue paper with the flowers. I'm now very round with a little stick figure inside me. Maybe one day I'll achieve "stick" status again, but it's not likely to be for another year, given my past history. I'll let you all know when their book is published since I know the demand will be high.

 

1.  Budding artists and writers at work, 2. Leftovers for lunch, 3. Sleeping in.

The Power of Writing, 5 Year-Old Style

So Mister and Sweetie were spending some quality time in their room on Saturday for writing on my computer screen. Yes, that's right. 5 and 3 and they wrote on the computer screen. In return, they lost computer privileges and all pencil and pen privileges for 2 weeks and they spent some time in their rooms thinking about it (a.k.a. allowing me to cool off a bit). 

After around 15 min of quality room time, I see that a note had been slid out from under the door of Mister's room, his first note ever to me, written with a little stub of black crayon he'd found in his drawer:

Translation:  Mom please (ples) lt (let) me get at (out) d d d (he couldn't write "dear" he said) mom, to mom

Did you know that most American people have a negative connotation of writing? Deborah Brandt conducted an extensive study about people's experiences with reading and writing (in her fabulous book Literacy in American Lives). She found that most people grew up with reading being a positive thing--mom and dad reading books at bedtime, getting books for presents, etc. But for most, writing was a negative thing--they'd been punished for writing on a wall or in a book, they'd gotten judged and graded by their writing prowess from an early age. A lot of literacy scholars say this is because writing has great power for changing power relations in an individual's life and in society. When you write, you speak out, you have a voice, you can effect change. The powers that be know this and try to control writing (oftentimes through schooling). 

So here's my son, playing this all out for me. I'd punished him (rightly so) for his writing. And now he's trying to use writing to change his situation. So I don't know what a good mom would do in this situation, but I did what any good literacy scholar would do. I let the boy out. Go, Mister! Write up a storm (just don't do it on my computer screen again!!)