my wish

"Here go, daddy. make a wish!"

Ezra hands me a dandelion. We are sitting on the steps in front of a house where Ava is taking a drama class. It's a quiet Saturday morning.

"What should I wish for, buddy?"

"For stuff!"

"What 'stuff'?"

"Like your downstairs?"

I laugh at this. Downstairs is where I've been working on getting my workspace in order. Right now, there's a large desk with my animation desk set up, a bookcase filled with books, and lots of 'stuff' all around, ready to be organized and placed in shelves, drawers, tables.

I closed my eyes, took a breath, and wished for 'stuff'.

and i mean it

Meet Ezra, resident no parking bully.

UPDATE: If you cannot see this image, sorry, but I've decided to private all photos of my children.

ezra

Back in August, we checked out a very cool outdoor market downtown and walked about the vendors, smelling the smells and ooed and ahhed over the sights. As Andrea went with Ava to get food for lunch, Ezra and I lounged about on the grass, underneath the trees. After some running around, my son stops and falls to the ground. I don't see him do this at first -- I was looking the other way. But suddenly I have this realization that the usual ball of energy I call my son is strangely quiet. So I turn and see him laying down on the ground all by himself, looking up into the trees.

He doesn't move. He's like this for several minutes. For those who have 3 year old sons, you know that that's like a small eternity.

I got real close to take his picture, and he still did not move.

Basking in a post-Halloween glow

Boy am I pooped. Last night was tons o' fun, but the kids wore us out. We definitely had a blast -- the kids had fun and looked great (Ava was a cowgirl and Ezra was a skeleton) and it helped that the weather was amazing. There's a neighborhood just down the road from ours that goes all out for Halloween. And when I say go all out, I mean GO ALL OUT. I'm talking full throttle, balls to the wall, no holds barred Halloween fun and mischief all up and down this one particular street. There were dueling houses with each offering their own haunted scenery and environments for visitors to enjoy. We discovered this neighborhood last year and promised that we'll have to return each year. There were tons of people walking through the streets: from kids to teens to adults. There was so much electricity and energy going on -- the scene looked too perfect that it was almost like when you see Halloween shown in a movie. The costumes would look just a tad too good, you know? But this was real. Everyone was in some sort of costume (some of the adults had pulled up their masks to be able to drink) although I didn't plan on putting together anything. Time was limited after work, so no fun & funky Halloween dress-up for me. Maybe I'll recreate that 1978 costume next year. I've always wanted to do that.

Expect pics soon, most likely on Andrea's Flickr. By the way, check out our Halloween pics from last year.

A couple of links that I meant to list on my Spookish Flotsam post:

Michael Fleming, aka Tweedlebop, just finished the Tweedlesketch's 31 Days of Monsters project on his blog. Great characters! Fleming's a contributor to The Retro Kid and a great artist to boot.

Another Retro Kiddo is Todd Franklin, who goes by the moniker of Neato Coolville. He's got a blog with tons of great Halloween stuff from the days of yore. Very very cool.

In the What were they thinking? catagory, here's a list of The Worst Halloween Costumes of All Time from RetroCrush. Baretta? Chuck Barris? Asteroids? Rubik's Cube??? I mean, I kinda watched those shows and I kinda got into that Rubik's fad (loved Asteroids), but COME ON -- I can't imagine ANY kid wanting to go out dressed as a dorky multi-colored cube. And that "motorcycle enthusiast" from the Village People? That's rich, I tell ya. Rich.

I'll keep going if you don't stop me

Sorry it's been slow around here. I'm currently working on a post that I'm very excited about, so it's taking me longer to fine tune it. In the meantime, check out my boy Ezra scribbling away with his markers back in April. It was a hoot watching him work. He took to the paper like it was his sole purpose in life. His method consisted of: grabbing a marker, popping off the top, scribbling away for a second, putting the top back on the marker, and then grabbing the next color. All of his creative energy was concentrated on one particular spot on the page, and I swear he'd still be drawing to this day if I hadn't stopped him. (See more pics of the EZ drawing in my Flickr.)

Next post will be a good one. Something special. Hopefully it'll be ready later on today.

Ava Thursday: Ezra's Birthday Present

For Ezra's 2nd birthday, Ava drew Lightning McQueen on a big number "2" that Andrea cut out of posterboard. Ezra is NUTS for cars (and the Pixar movie too)—so, naturally Ava decided on drawing the main character on a highway for her brother.


Notice that there's new pavement behind him, just like in the movie, when McQueen was sentenced to fix the road. I love the little details here, from the eyes to the stickers on the hood, to the little lightning bolts on the side. She informed me that she drew him without looking at anything for reference. I would've never gotten him right if I tried. Also, if you take a closer look at the first photo, Ava tried to draw 'Bessie,' the asphalt-paver-machine-thingy that McQueen was chained to in the film, at the top of the 2, but decided that it was too hard to draw and proceeded to scribble it out. Worth a shot.

Mommy was recruited to help out in coloring the rest of the road when Ava figured out it was going to be quite an undertaking with those thin markers.

Click here to view a photoset of the birthday party.

Some sketches for ya

Got around to scanning some sketches from my Moleskine recently. Here, take a look:


My favorite sketching subject: my wife.




Those odd drawings over on the right are stoplights and a streetlamp or two. I like to draw them while I wait for them to turn green. Passes the time much quicker.


I love drawing Ava and Ezra, especially if they want to draw too. Ezra: "Uunh DAW!"


Some odd characters at the bottom there, and oh, yeah—me drawing.


Just trying something new here.

Welp, there ya go. Hope you enjoy. I'll try and post some more work soon.

Jellyfishies

To my surprise, this photo I took of Ava and Ezra taking a gander at some jellyfish on a recent visit to the massive Georgia Aquarium was listed as one of the "most interesting photos" of February 06 2006 as part of the Flickr: Explore! calendar. Apparently it's all based on "interestingness." I had no clue that this photo was even up there, but I guess it's a good thing. I'm flattered and I'm honored.

I can't believe I was able to keep the camera still long enough to capture this shot. I was certain that it would come out all blurry, but I guess not. And by the way, there was no photo-tweaking done on this shot -- no color alterations, no Photoshopping. What you see is what you get.

Illustration Friday: E is for Ezra

Whew! Well, after a crazy deluge of traffic thanks to a recent mention on Boing Boing, it's nice to get back to doing what I really love around here and that's to draw and to create. And to participate in Illustration Friday. This week's theme is a rather different one: E is for.... I like that it's a theme that can be so open and be interpreted in any way possible. Nice.

Well, the first thing that came to my mind was E is for Ezra. He's my boy. He's not like any other kid, and I love him so.

He's energetic and all over the place (just ask Andrea). He tromps around the house like Godzilla and is obsessed with balls. With that, can I add that he's got this incredible left throwing arm? It's unbelievable, I tell you. He greets me with the warmest smile and the best "Dad-deeeee!" when I come home every evening. And when I pick him up he embraces me and I immediately melt like butter. I do not want to forget this about him.

Anyway, that's Ezra. He's my boy. And I love him so.

Den of Sickness

It wasn't supposed to be like this. The new year was not supposed to start off with everyone in my family sick as DOGS.

See, I was really excited to start brand new at New Years. Even though I'm not one to make any concrete resolutions, I do like the concept of shedding off the old and brandishing the new. I love transition and change (although my mother will beg to differ), and 2006 was going to be the year that I change the way that I eat, the way that I work, the way that I handle taking on side projects, as well as take on new possibilities. I was all ready to start with a bang.

But then both Ava and Ezra started getting the Runny Nose. And then it was the Cough. The Cough stayed longer than it should and pretty much wiped the two of them out when we were gone to visit the in-laws. (Can I just say that the trip back home was pretty much the WORST NIGHT EVER?)

Right when we thought we were pretty much out of the thicket with the kids, Friday night Ezra began to throw up. Not just throw up, but Throw Up. It was horrendous. All night and pretty much throughout the next day. There's nothing like spending Saturday night at the doctor's office with the entire family. Fun! I do not wish this upon you. Unless you are my enemy.

So Sunday pretty much became "Watch Ezra All Day" Day to check on his progress. Once he took a nice long nap in the early evening, he woke up being silly with me and I suspected that we were in the clear. BUT THEN -- Andrea started to feel woozy and made a mad dash to the bathroom. Ava followed suit 20 minutes later. Yes, one was fine, but now two are ill. I can never win. It's been a crazy, crazy day for me. Both my girls are sick as dogs and it hurts me to no end to see them this way. Especially Andrea, who always maintains some sort of composure with herself, even with the bathroom door shut and yacking sounds coming from the other side. She's even been known to let the faucet run while she did her sick business so as not to gross me out.

And I have to say that none of this grosses me out, to be honest with you. Even with little Ezra throwing up all over my coat and jeans, and with Ava getting sick all over the place, the whole vomit thing doesn't faze me. Once your kids (and spouse) are green, something switches on inside you and you become Super Dad, or something. It's really odd. I wish I could explain it. Puke, poop and pee might be the grossest things coming from other kids, but not when they come from my own. I kinda surprised myself when I first became a dad. For the first week of Ava's life, I changed every one of her diapers, while Mommy was resting from surgery. Baptism by fire, I guess.

But it's been all good since then. I don't mind it when Ava has an accident while sleeping, I don't mind it when Ezra goes pee-pee all over my hands and himself while I change him. As far as I'm concerned it's all a part of being a parent. If you don't like it then tough patooties.

I don't know what to expect for tomorrow. I've got so much to do for work (I even brought some home to work on during the weekend) but if Andrea and Ava are still ill, I'm not sure how I'm going to maintain a balance between it all.

Happy 2006, huh?

UPDATE: Super Dad is no more. I got the bug in the middle of the night last night. Spending all day today trying to recover. Ugh!

Announcing Ezra Mondays

Okay just kidding about that. That would've been pretty wild if it were to be true, huh? Imagine a weekly drawing from a 17 month old -- that's just crazytalk, I tell ya.



However, he did do a drawing a couple of weeks ago while hanging out at my work. He was fascinated by grabbing one of the many red Col-erase pencils I have laying around my desk, so I gave hime one to see what he would do with it. He immediately started to jab with it at the piece of paper that was in front of him. Curious, I drew a simple doodle of a baby on the paper, to see if I could garner a reaction from my little energetic budding artist. He started to "draw" on my drawing, in a reptitious manner. Attack is more like it. That poor drawing of mine didn't stand a chance.

I was able to do a quick sketch of his hand holding the pencil, while drawing:



So is this the beginning of a brand new artist? Who's to know. I am enjoying just watching little Ezra explore this big, bold world around him for the first time. With his bright eyes all wide with wonder, I see him bound around our house and in the front yard with such a fervor to experience everything for the first time. It's quite an event to witness. It serves as a constant reminder of how I should experience this world around me: with new eyes.

It's hard, but I try.

Ava Thursday: Ezra asleep in carseat

Click for a closer look.

Ava drew this cute little scene last week in the car. Ava was bored and didn't know what to draw while we were in the car, just after lunch. I suggested that she draw Ezra, who was asleep in his carseat right next to her. I didn't really think she'd take me up on my suggestion, but she immediately began to look over at her brother, and then doodle with her red pencil.

By this point, I was being dropped off at work (I usually do lunch with my family, we live so close to Primal). While at work, Andrea called me about 10 minutes later and said, "You should see what Ava drew. It's really interesting."

And she was right. What a fun drawing! This is Ezra sleeping in his carseat (note the 'zzzz's'), while Ava pokes her head in from the right, singing him a song. I love how she's drawn herself only half in the frame, complete with a big smile. And how Ezra is sitting there, with the seatbelt keeping him safe. That's a teething rattle next to him, obviously drawn not to scale. (I tried to find a pic of this same rattle to show you how amazingly detailed Ava drew it, but could not find anything online.)

Ava loves her little brother so much. She's very good with him and tries to help out mommy as much as she can. When I look at this drawing, it shows to me what a great relationship she has with Ezra.

Ava Thursday: Ezra's Fussy

Welcome to another edition of Ava Thursday, where I, Ward Jenkins, feature a piece of artwork by my 4 1/2 year-old daughter, Ava, on a weekly basis. I think she's a pretty talented little girl (I'm her dad -- I'm supposed to think that), and so I've decided to post up her artwork for others to enjoy. Ava gets a big kick out of it, too, as she loves to see her work on the computer screen. If you'd like to see previous Ava Thursday efforts, there's a pull-down menu over in the right column. Hope you like.

And so, for this week's effort Ava has drawn her little brother, Ezra not happy at all. Ava said that "he's fussy!" Ezra's not too bad a baby -- in fact, he's quite the happy and content little boy -- but here, Ava's decided to show him otherwise. Notice that he's saying something with the word balloon on the right, and he's thinking something with the thought balloon on the left. It's interesting how she places him right in the middle, as most children do whenever they draw themselves or some main character. And look at the environment she's placed Ezra in. Whenever she draws a square-ish thing around a character, that usually means they are in a room, or a house.

And you gotta love the little doodle on the right there, of Andrea and I. Very cute.

This drawing was done earlier this year in January, with markers.