My late night artist

The last couple of weeks our lovely little 3 year old has turned bedtime in a record setting event of how many times can she get up and bother her parents with silly requests and statements that she has to go potty. It is driving us mad. It has driven us to start reading the parenting books again, something we haven't done in a long while. So, we have been working with her and talking to and doing the stuff the books and internet sites have said to do. Last night she didn't go to bed until after 11pm, but what happened was awesome.

I was staying up late dealing with my latest addiction (the TV show, "Scrubs"). She had only been up once for the bathroom, which was a huge improvement. I heard her in her room rustling around, but she didn't come out and then around 11pm she came out with this amazing piece of artwork and said she had made it for me. Below is her masterpiece:

She has never created a piece like this before. She has colored coloring book pictures and done some crayon work, but this by far was the most amazing. And she came out of her room, all calm and sparkly-eyed and I think a smidge proud. I wasn't mad she was up. I was amazed by the creativity, explanations of what was in this picture.

She pointed out the red flower she put in there. It was in honor of the potted mini roses she had seen at the store earlier today and had wanted to bring home. She also said there are sheep and pink flowers in it. I thanked her and complimented her artwork. She beamed. She had one final visit to the bathroom and was off to sleep. I just love looking at it. I may need to frame it for our bedroom.

The negative to it, she used a scrap piece of paper from our recycle pile so there is some printing on it, but I guess that just makes the piece more environmentally friendly.