Colors for Tiny Hands

I picked up Cormac McCarthy's ash covered novel The Road when my daughter took a nap today and finished (hiding my sobs) just after she woke up. It's amazing, but I'm completely haunted. It is a particularly disturbing read for a parent. As Michael Chabon's New York Review of Books article concludes:

The Road is not a record of fatherly fidelity; it is a testament to the abyss of a parent's greatest fears. The fear of leaving your child alone, of dying before your child has reached adulthood and learned to work the mechanisms and face the dangers of the world... And, above all, the fear of knowing—as every parent fears—that you have left your children a world more damaged, more poisoned, more base and violent and cheerless and toxic, more doomed, than the one you inherited. It is in the audacity and single-mindedness with which The Road extends the metaphor of a father's guilt and heartbreak over abandoning his son to shift for himself in a ruined, friendless world that The Road finds its great power to move and horrify the reader.

I read it too quickly to put in the freezer until I could catch my breath. So, I did the only other thing I could think of to chase away the demons and focus on the beauty in the world: I bought new art supplies.

Crayola has a few new products for little ones that we checked out today. The TaDoodles are almost like little ink blotters of color in weeble-like shapes that are easy for toddler hands and they come in a little car caddy that rolls. They are fun, washable and there are no caps to keep up with so you don't have to worry about them drying out. My daughter (2.4) loves them.



The Crayola Beginnings triangle crayons are great too and come in a plastic case handy for the diaper bag.