Wall Art

Our grandson, Nathaniel, came to visit recently. He excitedly shared with us his newly found interest in astronomy. He described his visit to a planetarium and told us how sad he felt that poor Pluto had been downgraded from planet status. (We told him that we were sad about that, too, because now we had to relearn the solar system, and old minds don't relearn things as quickly as young minds learn things from scratch.)

So, to help us, Nathaniel sat down and drew us a picture of the solar system. We told him that we thought it was quite a nice picture and very helpful to see the solar system without Pluto in it. About that time, Lemony decided it was time for Nathaniel to go home since it was a school night, and off they went.

Later that evening, as I walked through the living room, I noticed a paper affixed to the living room wall. It was the picture of the solar system. I guess Nathaniel left it to help our old, feeble minds remember the new solar system. He does that at times. Our walls are getting decorated enough that we just may have to resort to measures that we took when Lizzie was little.

We were living in a building that we also used a day care facility that we ran. Our living quarters were in one part of the building, and the day care in another, with long corridors. Those white corridors were really tempting for the day care children and for Lizzie. We were constantly washing crayon drawings off the walls, paranoid that we would end up removing the paint as well and have to pay a fortune to have the place re-painted. Then, we got the idea that rather than working against the children's yearnings to draw on the wall, perhaps we would be better off to go along with those yearnings.

So, off we went to the local newspaper publisher. We asked if there were leftover newsprint rolls that we could have for the center. (When the newspaper is printed -- at least in the days of printing presses -- the paper rolls on which the newspapers were printed would always have some leftover paper. The size was perfect -- 2-3 feet high and a length of whatever was left on the roll, but usually 5-6 feet. It covered a corridor wall quite nicely. We had no more messes on the wall paint, and the children could then draw and color on the wall paper to their hearts' content.

The children loved seeing their art work on display in this way and having the opportunity to draw whatever they liked whenever they had some free time without getting into trouble for drawing on the wall. (Is there a child in existence who has never drawn on a wall?) When the paper was completely used up, it could be replaced with a new roll, and we could cut out the individual children's wall art to be taken home.

That might be just the thing for our walls and Nathaniel. Now, if we can just find a newspaper publisher that still prints on newsprint, using printing presses...