His Gingerbread Man period

Graham and I were sitting alone at the craft table at the play group the Saturday before last.

All the other kids were enjoying circle time together, but having given up trying to get my little non-conformist to join in, I had turned my attention to the paper gingerbread man he was working on.

The table was littered with examples other children had created. Two eyes positioned roughly where one would expect to find them, circles for noses, moon-shaped cut-outs for smiley faces and woolly hair glued - yup! - right on top of the head.

But, despite my enthusiastic exhortations, Graham had his own ideas about how his man (woman?) should look.


Sigh.

At first I felt just a little down, resigned if you will, to the increasingly obvious fact that Graham is destined to spend his life swimming against the tide.

But then, the more I looked at his creation, the more it reminded me of something.

There was a certain style, a certain flair that was oddly familiar.

Hmmm, let's see, where had I seen something like it before?

Oh wait - I know!

Yeah...I think my boy's gonna be just fine.