Friday #8: Hand in hand with Eliot and a penguin

Friday #8, 12/28/12 I took two friends with me: Eliot and Backyardigan Pablo the Penguin...

Christmas was sort of anti-climatic, Liam was in therapy that day, and Eliot had needed an outing. 

I told him "we're going to the Art Museum" and he kept chanting it to himself on the drive there....

Required sticker proof of presence...(it took a long time to get this photo believe it or not because E was not happy about Pablo wearing a sticker...)

Pop art!

"Hmmm...which way..."

(Yes, he really said all the quotes...)

"We go this way! To the art museum! To do some painting!"

"C'mon Pablo! We're going to the art museum. Art museum! Art museum!"

(What I didn't document here are the three other kids who came up to Eliot and wanted to admire Pablo. That's how you make friends as a 2-year-old, with a Backyardigan side kick. Seriously. Kids were dragging their parents over to us in delight at seeing this penguin).

On to the Kohl's art studio to do some painting. Pablo drawing by Jamie...

How did this day spin back to autism?

Because it always seems to.

The tidy 6-year-old sitting next to us observed to her put-together mother (the one who I wasn't quite sure if she was nanny or mom until we started talking): "That boy is so neat when he paints! My brother could never do that."

And so I asked about her brother. Mom looked up wearily and explained her son (also 2)'s hyperactivity and his biting ("and the worst part is that he seems to take pleasure in hurting his sister...").

I showed them the bite scars on Eliot's arm, told them about Liam's autism, explained what sensory seeking is, and told them what a child who is very oral might need (gum, chewies, etc.). I pretty much did everything but make any diagnosis or conclusions about her son.

I'm there for Eliot and not trying to get too pulled into this autism story. Just for 1 hour please.

The mom was tight-lipped, to say the least, so we leave it at that, but perhaps the seeds have been planted. Maybe she will look at her son differently...maybe this conversation will change his path (from the psycho kid to the autistic kid who needs therapy?)...

But in the meantime, let's just focus on painting a penguin please...

Or gathering massive amounts of plastic animals...

"Too many animals mama!"

"Shark attack!" (Eliot's favorite game is to run screaming "shark attack" and then tackle. Adam taught him this...)

Yes, he can sit and paint a penguin carefully; but, tell him he can't cross the rope to touch a painting:  full-on meltdown...

"All better now mama...hold hands mama?"

As we were leaving, I saw a mother and her son, walking hand in hand through the galleries. They were near the triangles my son loves. And this woman looked a lot, a whole lot, like my Grandma Merriman, who died last summer.

 I watched them, surreptitiously snapped a picture, and held my 2-year-old's hand, hoping that we might still hold hands when I needed his strength and guidance as much as he needs mine now.

See you next week.

Friday #3: 11/23/12 Black Friday and the Boys

Black Friday.

Try as I might, I couldn't help but plan this post a little bit all this last week.

It was going to be deep.

I was going to juxtapose the notion of spending my time lingering over art versus the madness of Black Friday marathon-deal-hunter-bargain-a-polooza.  I thought I'd even reflect on Ad Reinhardt's black-on-black 1963 painting, Abstract Painting:

But guess who came with me to the MAM this Black Friday to see Abstract Painting:

That's right. Adam was ill, and we needed an outing.  So LRP and EJP, two kiddos under the age of 5, tagged along for something entirely out of their usual circuit of home-school-park-pool-library-therapy. We also brought along one of LRP's (wonderful, amazing, brave) ABA therapists.

Big brother is non-verbal and has autism, and little brother is just downright 2. I didn't know what to expect.

And, you know, they did a marvelous job at the museum.  They weren't the only kids there, and if I hadn't mentioned it (and perhaps if he hadn't been gnawing away at a chewie necklace) you'd never know LRP had autism.  They were just 2 dudes utterly awed by the MAM.   EJP kept muttering, "wow" under his breath, and LRP was stalled by all the light.

Here's our weekly proof of presence:

We bravely marched into the gallery space. 

Again, the mantra of "wow, wow, wow" punctuated EJP's every step.

The joke I'm dying to make here is: "we put the mummy in mama's day at the MAM."

Then, time for something less concrete. Abstract art is actually quite exciting to toddlers because they can relate to the shapes.

"TRIANGLE!", EJP shouted, delighted at his cleverness and the echo in the gallery.

From there to the larger paintings in the back of the museum.

I have studied this painting countless times on my own, but today I got to tell my kids that it was made by the artist using layers of paint and then lifting them with plastic wrap to bring the colors below out. 

I love this blue painting so much. I will go back and investigate some other day when I'm not racing a 2-year-old towards it muttering, "we look with our eyes, not our hands, in the art museum."

"Amazing!" he yells over his shoulder, as he turns the corner into the next gallery. "Wow!"

And then we made some art of our own...

And then it was time to lounge in ultra-modern chairs. 

Liam was on the verge of a meltdown, and so his therapist and I agreed: better a short (30-minute), successful visit to the museum, then to push it and have a meltdown.

Final thoughts: I was telling my sister (who's a gotta-go kind of gal, who checks off lists when she goes to museums) about today's visit to the museum. She blurted out to me: "I mean, do they change the art every time you go? Won't you get bored seeing the same things over and over?"

I told her that most of the art stays the same, but every visit is different.  Last Friday, I was taking in weirdness After Dark with a girlfriend.  This week, I was coloring paper butterflies with my children. Next week, who knows?  

The motto of the MAM is "Where art lives...", and I think that's the end of today. I'm feeling a bit more alive after seeing some art and watching my children wonder at the heady combination of light, color, and creation.  

See you next Friday.