Peelings - Nothing More than Peelings . . .

Okay - in all honesty, I will admit, I am not particularly attached to the wallpaper. The wallpaper in our kitchen I have no strong feelings regarding either way. However, I would prefer it to stay attached to the walls.

Just when I thought we were starting to outgrow the grafitti phase with Sadie - Adam comes up with a new developmental challenge to hearth and sanity- peeling. Adam has heard me telling Sadie that we only draw "ON PAPER" for well, years now. Her artwork having a cave drawing-ish sort of appeal. In our basement you can chronicle her development over time - the shapeless scribbles; contorted circles and other shapes; the gerbil people - amorphous looking blobs with limited facial features and then arms and legs and heads and bodies - asymmetrical, often with fingers and feet elephantine in proportion, but a person nonetheless. Once we got people down - we started drawing numbers and letters and then words. Not exactly "Kilroy wuz here" - but Sadie 4 with a backwards "S". Adam had just taken to scribbling on himself in the past few weeks. I took a deep breath and braced myself for a new crop of art to begin appearing on whatever surfaces he had a yen to decorate. Every day I looked for new ink or crayon marks. Each day that passed with no new wall art I breathed a sigh of lucky relief - thinking, hoping, maybe Adam won't be quite as prolific as his older sister. Then one day I walked into the kitchen and found a pile of scrap paper on the floor. As I bent to pick it up from the floor and transfer it to a more suitable receptacle (fancy word for trashcan) I noticed it bore a remarkably familiar pattern - varying shades of green ivy leaves and vine on a white scrubbable vinyl. Ugh. I looked and sure enough - I had a large patch of plain wall next to the fridge. Subject almost 3 year old child to the "We Don't" lecture. All lectures given to children under the age of five usually begin with "We don't" . "We don't hit" We don't stuff bread up our nose" "We don't scribble on our baby brother." "We don't <insert your verb here>" Lecture administered, I watch him like a hawk. However, at some point, the baby needs to be put down for a nap, or the phone rings, I need to change the laundry over, or pick someone up from school. Once mom's attention is diverted - even for a moment, when she returns there is a new pile of wallpaper peelings on the floor and a fresh patch of bare wall. Initially I think Matt just wanted to try patching. Now I think he is considering repapering. Myself? Personally - I am not so much a wallpaper aficionado in the first place. I'm all for peeling the rest and going with plain white like the rest of the house. Matt seems less then enthused with that idea as it will require spackle, sanding, texturizing, priming, painting and largely through his personal efforts. Fresh, new plain white walls may also prove to be even more temptation for our little budding artists in situ and we will be back to cave drawings again. I did proffer the suggestion of a chair rail and wainscoting below as a potential solution. Since Adam's vertical reach is rather limited by his age appropriate stature at the moment, this isn't that high. Though - Matthew did point out that a 4ft, 5 and 2/3rds inches high chair rail is generally not the norm. My response being "and since when is anything around here "the norm" comparatively speaking? The norm for us usually differing wildly from the rest of the world.

As any devoted artiste - Adam has his little personal quirks, one being the need to peel while scantily clad. (refer to photos) Yes - our peeling phase is occurring at the same time as our streaking phase. He is nothing if not thorough. We have a large eat-in style kitchen and he has quickly and efficiently peeled a goodly portion of it, all while wearing pretty much nothing more than a diaper, a few pen marks and a smile. Oh - and strawberry jam around the mouth acquired from lunch.

I truly hope he outgrows this phase before he ever gets a sunburn . . .