Last week we asked kids to draw us pictures of their pets. This seemed harmless enough. I figured we’d get images of fluffy puppies, cats, and maybe a bunny or two. I was not prepared for dragons.
That’s right, dragons. Apparently Joe has a dragon. And this is what he had to say about it (or, as it may seem, didn’t have to say about it).
Joe’s mom: “Is that a pet of yours, Joe? Is that a dragon?! It’s obviously green~ (Joe’s favorite color.) Is it a family pet?”
Joe wouldn’t say.
Joe’s Mom: Well, I guess what happens in Joe’s castle stays in Joe’s castle.
Or, perhaps it flies over the castle walls terrifying the countryside…
If the shock of one dragon wasn’t enough, my exploration of submissions revealed that there are, in fact, TWO Bobbledy kids with dragons for pets.
Yes, Spencer has a dragon, too, and his is rather fierce.
“This is me on my pet dragon and I am on it and we’re trying to kill other bad dragons with my spear. The sky is red because it’s sunset and because my dragon is shooting out fire at the bad dragons.”
Tyler, on the other hand, has a dog. Actually, he doesn’t have a dog. But he doesn’t have a dragon, either. He does have a pretend dog, and in my book, pretend dogs are much less scary that real live dragons any day.
Here’s what Tyler had to say about his pretend dog:
“The dog is named Spot. He’s my pretend dog. The design of the dog is stripes. He’s happy and he’s hungry even though he already ate breakfast. He had a little breakfast – only one bite of breakfast, actually. The design on the floor is letters and numbers.”
I guess the best thing about having a pretend dog is that you can design him however you like. And can situate him in whatever sort of landscape you see fit. I wonder if the floor design is imaginary, too. I must compliment Tyler’s pretend dog on not being an over eater, though one bite of breakfast seems not quite enough for the busy day that surely lies ahead.
Some other kids actually have actual, non-pretend dogs and cats and the like in their homes. And some kids have both. Kato, for example, who has both.
Oscar turned out fairly well, I think. He’s approximately catlike in appearance. Lily, in spite of what you might be thinking, was not a pig, though she sometimes ate like one. Iggy is the odd cluster of eyes and nose in the lower left. She does not have the outline of a face, just the other stuff like ears and mouth. The scribbly orb above Iggy’s head is Kato’s best attempts to efface a botched effort. He asks that you forgive him for lacking the means to erase green marker.
Alden’s portrait of her dog Iggy reveals a deep-seated desire to ride her large blue friend.
The hint of a smile that shows on Iggy’s face is Alden’s version of distorted reality in the service of wish fulfillment. Iggy does not, never has, and never will want to be ridden by Alden or any other person in our house.
Continuing a theme, Robbi’s drawing presents solid evidence that Iggy does, in fact, have an entire face and that Lily is not a pig.
Kato did seem to get the size and density of Iggy’s nose right, though.