One of Duplo’s absolute favorite activities is coloring. Give him something to write on and something to write with, and he’ll fill the space with scribbles. My day planner is almost completely filled with his “artwork.” He prefers painting to drawing, and he knows the ins and outs of using a paintbrush, dipping it in the paint, rinsing it in water, and dipping it in another color. He prefers pens to pencils, but he likes sidewalk chalk, crayons, and markers equally. Lately I’ve noticed that when he’s given a picture to color in, he’ll actually color on the picture instead of just randomly coloring on the paper. At first he’d bring pictures home from nursery with the hands and faces and feet of the people colored in. Now he’ll color the whole person.
Duplo likes coloring so much, in fact, that “color” (the verb) was one of his first ten words. Or, as he’d say it, “nunga nunga nunga.” It took us a while to figure out that’s what he meant, but when he pointed to a crayon and repeated “nunga nunga” until we got it down, it became clear. Nowadays he says the word clearly; I almost miss the baby way, though.
As part of Duplo’s obsession with coloring came the inevitable stage where he’d mark his territory all over the house with whatever he could find to write with. There was a time when there was crayon or pen on almost every wall he could get to in the house. Also on the furniture. Our ottoman’s uphostery still has red pen on it that I couldn’t get out. Thank goodness for the powerful cleaning products of today. We have worked hard with him to teach him that we only color on paper, and most of the time he gets it. It’s also helped to keep pens out of his reach altogether.
I suspect that he’ll have at least some interest in art when he gets older. His dad is very artistically talented, and I used to draw and paint quite a bit when I was younger myself. And with this much interest from such a young age, it almost seems like a sure bet. I guess we’ll wait and see.
