My studio is in the spare room of our house, opposite my daughter’s bedroom and its closed door is one of the first things she sees in the morning. She taps on it and says “drawing” and, on tip toes, pulls the handle and wanders in. I could keep her out but I like sharing this space with her. She’s 22 months old and now this room means “drawing” to her. She presses the button on the printer as she walks in. The one with the green flashing light. She’s not meant to but she has made a sort of routine for herself when she enters, much in the same way I have. She walks over to the desk chair and climbs up. It swivels slightly as she does. She never thinks to sit on the chair because that’s where I always sit. Instead she clambers onto the desk and plonks herself down, (I bend down to check it’s not bowing in the middle yet because it’s started to make a noise when she does that). I have a line of toys on my windowsill and she reaches for them, one by one. Sometimes she glances at me to check she’s allowed. She is. (Apart from two very special ones that she gently taps and says “Mummy”.) I’ve put the inks and the sharpies and the precious pens out of sight and she leans with outstretched hands for the most colourful implements she can find. She mostly likes the highlighter pens and the colouring pencils made entirely of lead that she shouldn’t really use because they’re fragile but I’m fond of how fond she is of them. And then she asks for paper and I pass her some.
Sometimes, before nursery, I have to check she hasn’t got highlighter pen on her knees from that mornings wander into the “drawing” room. She usually does.