Frederick and Emily

To say that "Frederick is fond of Emily" is to utter the understatement of human history. When he sees her walk from her car to our house, his face glows with excitement. I have seen him, at the moment of her entering the house, dive under the blanket on our couch squealing, "Shy!" This weekend, he spent many hours searching the house for every photo of Emily and surrounding himself with them wherever he went. Yesterday, we found him drawing this:

Frederick had drawn himself and Emily and then asked Simon to write the names underneath. (Frederick is perfectly capable of writing out whatever he wants wherever he wants--just check our walls--but why write when you can order your father to do it for you?) Simon used a blue pencil (a Ferby!) which F. then took to add the forgotten Emily ears. I especially like the bold sweeping line, symbolizing them holding hands. [There are all sorts of (pretty questionable) articles in existence that claim that you can determine one developmental level of a child by analyzing their drawing skills--one chestnut is "the more small parts the child draws, the more mature the child is". A few months ago F's favorite body part was hair--one drawing of Thomas featured a quite dramatic hair-do. Then the hair disappeared by belly buttons appeared--every person and animal had a belly button to flaunt. Then we saw noses of all sorts, shapes and sizes. Last week it was eyebrows--huge, bold lines that you wouldn't normally see on any person not in a b/w silent movie. Now ears have appeared. As usual, Frederick defies simple categorization.]