Tying shoes and drawing the dog

I hate shopping, and since I do it all the time for my girls I never buy anything for myself. Lately I've been down to my old sneakers I bought when I lived in Argentina. As I walked over to the pharmacy with Phoebe 2 days ago we saw an old sneaker sitting on the edge of the road. Phoebe said "Look Mom! It looks like yours." "Kind of, except that one's nicer!" ..... The point of this story is I bought new shoes.

You'll notice that my shoes have no laces.  This is because when it comes to keeping my shoes tied I seem to be highly incompetent.   I remember being stopped, sometimes twice a day, when I lived in New York City by well meaning citizens who didn't want to watch me fall on my face on the sidewalk.  "Your shoes are untied!"  "Thanks." I'd mumble and put forth the effort once again to tie my shoes.  This is why it's highly ironic that I've actually written and illustrated a book for preschoolers to teach them this valuable skill....

 

22 pages of instructions on how to tie a proper bow...

 

It's pretty cute and told in rhyme (one that works), so repeated reading is a breeze.

 

It also comes with the "learning laces" that are half red and half blue and work with the book.

 

I spent the last few days dying them to sell my back stock of the books on eBay.

This week I also visited Madison Rose Lane Elementary School's 3rd Grade.  We drew monsters and practiced drawing faces.  The kids were great, they all wrote me thank you letters.  It was Naomi's class and the teacher made her write a letter as well.  It went something like this....

Dear Mom,

     I don't know why I have to write you a letter when I could just thank you at home.  My teacher says I have to, so thank you for coming to my class and drawing monsters.

     Love, Naomi

This week I've also been watching Mike grade his students' life drawings, which inspired me to do some life drawing.  I used the easiest model available, Oscar.  Mike says I get an "A".