Four Lessons

How to Draw a Cat by 4-year-old Alia

If you're thinking of making a cat's face or drawing a cat, you should first make friends with a cat. If you have a cat, try to sit next to her. Get down where she is so you can look at her face and know what to draw. Lay on your belly if you need to. You can put your paper on the floor and that will be ok. Look closely. Talk to the cat. Pet her. Listen to what she has to tell you. She'll tell you what to do.

Start with the ears, if the cat says so. If she says to do the eyes next, go with it. The whiskers are next, and then she surprised me with the paws. I was making a cat face, but she said to include the paws, so there they are! And then the nose and the mouth. Last was the forehead. Don't forget to give the cat a nice scratch and thank her. It's hard for cats to be patient, especially with little kids.


That's all there is. I don't have any more words for that topic. Except if the picture doesn't come out just the way you thought it was going to, then good - that's art!

OR ... How to Make a Friend  by 4-year-old Alia

But I do know something else! Drawing a cat is like making a friend if you really think about it.

If you're thinking of making a friend, you need to know something about the person. You need to sit next to them. Sometimes you need to get down to where they are like if they're on the floor or something. You need to look them in the face. You need to talk to them and help them feel calm. You need to listen to what they tell you and learn about them.

Like when Robin came here the first times and was scared and we would bring him trucks and lay on the floor with him and just vroom trucks for a while. We did something he liked even though it was something I didn't really want to do much.  First he wouldn't talk to us and led us around to the things he wanted to do. Then he started doing some things we wanted to do after a while and would say things to us. We let him know we were having fun and thanked him for coming to play. Sometimes it's hard to be patient if someone is shy.

And sometimes things don't turn out with new friends like you thought like you end up making friends after you do something silly like slip in the hallway and fall over and it's funny and they help you up even though you're ok - that's real friends.

P.S. Alia wonders how many people are going to understand why she's titled this post Four Lessons...