>Questionable Content

One of my favorite places to take Punky is our local museum, which has a room for kids that’s full of various stations where they can paint, draw, build towers, and even make prints on a printing press. At four dollars, it’s about the cheapest art class I can come up with here in town.

That’s where I took Punky on Monday to meet a friend and her daughter. Punky spent a good deal of time working on a masterpiece at the watercolor station, but quickly grew bored with sketching a wooden artist’s model.

“I’m done,” she announced after drawing a few lines on the big piece of paper attached to an easel. I looked over at her friend’s drawing, a perfectly good preschooler’s version of a person.

“Punky, that’s not a drawing,” I said. “It’s a few lines. Draw a person or something. You’re good at drawing people.”

Punky looked deeply offended. “This is a pember,” she said, pointing at the drawing.

“Okay,” I sighed. She ran onto the next art station and I left the “Pember” hanging on the easel.

I was watching her build a tower with some blocks when one of the museum volunteers approached. “You left your drawing on the easel,” she said brightly. “Is this yours?”

“Uh, thanks,” I mumbled, quickly taking it from her and looking around for the nearest trashcan.

“And I brought you this bag to put all your child’s artwork in,” she said, holding out a plastic bag. I smiled sheepishly, rolled up the drawing and put it inside. Damn Pember.

An inordinate amount of the art stations seemed to involve drawing something, and at each one Punky would squiggle a few lines and move on. Every single time I tried to leave it behind, an eagle-eyed volunteer would spy it and bring it to me with an overly helpful grin. By the time we left, I had a bag containing one great watercolor, and a crappy series of pencil sketches that included a Pember, a “Mushlala,” and a clock that looked more like a fried egg. I didn’t tell the volunteers this, but only the watercolor would make our refrigerator door gallery. I mean I only have so much room; I have to be somewhat discerning.

My friend and I had lunch with our girls and then let them play for a few minutes in the museum’s courtyard before we left. While we chatted, I shifted my bag of artwork and inadvertently turned it upside down. The wind was blowing pretty hard (it was the day after our Major Tornado Experience, after all), and Punky’s masterpieces blew hither and yon. I managed to catch the watercolor, then helplessly watched as the Pember, the Mushlala and the Fried Egg Clock whipped out of my reach. “Fly free,” I whispered softly, before turning back to my friend and shrugging. “Oh well,” I said. We continued our conversation.

In a moment, though, we were interrupted by a breathless security guard. “Ma’am, are these yours?” he asked, panting. In his hands were all three drawings. I paused for a moment, but realized there was no way out of this one. Dude had gone to extraorinary lengths to collect three pieces of paper with squiggles on them. Poor guy. “Um, yes,” I said. “They are mine. Thank you. I hoped, I mean, I thought they were gone forever!” He handed them to me and I stuffed them back into my bag.

So, er, volunteers? Security guard? If you’re reading this, just know that I got home and decided, of that the Pember, the Mushlala and the Fried Egg Clock were, well, too precious to display. They are now stored safely in my circular file. And we’ll say no more about that.

This post originally appeared on Parents.com.