I also meant to say that we have finally closed on our house sale and we have moved into the apartment. I'm so glad it's over for now. It was kind of traumatic towards the end. The kids are adjusting well, after some initial behavior and emotional issues. We are all looking forward to the construction of the new house at this point. As for the apartment transition, it really helps that we're in the same area where we lived. And it also helps that the apartment has a really great pool.

The apartment is bigger than I thought it would be, but we're still cramped on space, obviously. It hasn't deterred B from making his daily paper creations. I can't remember if I've blogged about this or not. B discovered tape on the dispenser and he has since immersed himself in the world of paper creations. His first creations were a paper airport and a paper museum. I need to post pictures. When he makes paper buildings, he makes a floor with a foundation and wrap-around walls. They're really interesting.

Then, he ventured into the world of the body. He made some paper lungs with a heart in the middle. One Sunday, I found him making a flat paper bladder with a drop of urine, connected to two kidneys. He then affixed large and small intestines, a stomach and a liver. After a lung/heart sub-assembly was attached, he worked on a head. The brain was divided into three components: the brain, the brain stem and "this thing that attaches to the brain stem" (the cerebellum). I still have that one and once I locate the roll of laminate in one of the boxes, I will attempt to preserve it. Construction paper degrades so quickly!

He also made a paper dog bowl by curling strips of paper and attaching them to a base. It looks like rows of paper "O's" have been taped to the base and it makes a bowl. Yesterday, he made a flat paper camera with a slot for T. When they take pictures, they push out a small paper picture. I just saw B run by with another sheet of paper. There's no telling what he's working on. Yesterday it was an African drum for T, although it didn't work out to B's satisfaction.

B fascinates me sometimes by his absolute drive to create things. And whenever he makes things, there's usually tremendous quantity involved and evolution of product. It's very hard to keep up with in terms of saving vs cleaning up. And I find myself feeling inadequate on occasion in terms of my ability to feed and nurture this. It appears as though he's feeding it just fine by himself, however. He's the busiest little kid I've ever seen! I really need to look into art classes again this year, although it's a fine line between nurturing his interest and undermining it. We had such a positive experience with watercolors and clay at the Arts Center in my parent's city last year that we might brave the drive again this year. I just need to look into it once fall listings are posted.

I could totally see B as an artist someday. So many people devalue and discourage that due to the "starving artist" image. I had a friend whose parents refused to pay her college tuition if she majored in art. If that's a route that he wants to follow, then I would support that. He always has a lot of diverse ideas about what he wants to be when he grows up, just like I did as a kid. Right now, however, he wants to be "a surgeon, a regular doctor and an animal doctor." T wants to be a fisherman and a cook.