When Matthew Draws.

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A fleet of rocket ships blasting off into space from a park
below. Most of the circles are planets, but the one with four
smaller circles within it is the moon.

This is the drawing he describes below.

A one-eyed alien driving our van. (This one even has exhaust pipes!)

Our house, if we had an elephant and a giraffe living outside. (All those circles are bricks.)

If I had to guess I’d say Matthew probably draws somewhere around 850 thousand different pictures a week… more of less. To save on paper we make as much use of his dry erase board as humanly possible -- which is AWESOME because it means that I don’t have to save every last one that he makes. It is also terrible because it means that I don’t get to save every last one that he makes… So I’ve started taking pictures of them.

Two days ago Matthew stole a paper towel and, in an effort to procrastinate the chore that is finishing the fruit on his breakfast plate, started doodling. So, in an effort to procrastinate the chore that is making him finish the fruit on his plate, I started recording the process on video. This is what he had to say about it.

(Forgive the stuttering; he’s very particular about wording things juuuust right, and I wanted to get an accurate account of his exact words.)

　

“This is our house. I put spikeys on it so it could be a scary, scary, scary, scaryyyy looking spider house.

And, I’m almost finished this rocket ship. ’Cause, it has to be a spider too. And it, and this one, and this… and this one, and this spider has to be a dead, broken spider rocket ship with… with juice comin’ out of it. Because, because it, because it got bent. That’s the bent one. See that drip right there? That’s blood.

And that’s, that’s a machine shooter outer in case you see something in the road that doesn’t belong there, if, if anybody is a litterbug, throwing either on the street… or the sidewalk… or the grass… or the concrete.

And this is the old plug. NO. Actually… THIS is the old plug. To the rocket ship. And this is the new plug connecting to it. And MOMMY, it has to go UNDER the house because um, because it can’t fit all the way up of the house because then it will break the chimney.”

(Me: Ohhh… and who are these people, here? Are they people? I see this one has wings.)

“Mommy! I’m drawing the same thing as I drew on my board! This is the things where the -- you know, that Wendy drew.”

(Ohh… It’s the drawing Wendy drew in our Peter Pan movie? The one of her and Peter?)

“Uh-huh. That’s Wendy laying in her bed, and that’s Peter Pan. I can’t draw um, um, um, um, um, uh, um… whatever it is you call it that comes with Peter Pan. Oh yeah. Tinker Bell. I can’t draw it because I don’t have enough room."

(Me: Well tinker Bell is pretty small though, isn't she?)

"Yeah but she makes a big light.

And um… that’s uh, these are -- these are numbers and that’s a boy.”

(Me: Cool. I really like your house. I like that’s it’s a neat shape. And look at all those windows! It’s as big as a tower, it looks like. And you have that really cool door right there…)

“No, that’s not a door. That’s a remote and that’s a T.V. It’s a T.V. hanging on the wall. And that’s a couch. For jumping. I’m almost done drawing the T.V. up there…. [draws some more]

THERE. I decorated the T.V. so it could look like a creepy-looking finger T.V. with this, this… with another, with that finger all, all, all broken and blood dripping out. These are blood cells but you can’t see it. They’re too small.”

(Me: Blood? Wow. That’s creepy.)

“Uh-huh. It’s a dead-looking zombie T.V.”

(Me: So where’s the door? There’s no door? Or is it somewhere where we can’t see?)

“Um. I’m gonna draw a door.” [draws a door.]

(Me: It’s cool if there’s no door. It’s your drawing; make it however you want.)

“This is the cat’s door so it can poop in it’s thing. And this is the door the cat tried to sneaked… sneaked… sneaked -- SNUCK! in when I tried to pet it with that stick.”

(Me: Pet him with a stick?? You don’t pet our cat with a stick.)

“Yes! I like to pet him… -- It’s my petting! It’s no matter how I pet it. Okay? Would you, would you just let me draw in silent? I need to concentrate. I’m not finished…. I have to draw a door. A zombie door.”