Stahlke Adoption

In response to Jonathan's picture, Kola sat down to draw. It was the first time we had seen him do this for more than ten seconds! This time, he sat for a long time, and made two attempts before drawing a picture to his satisfaction.

His purpose was to copy Papa's drawing and make it his own. First, he drew the sun in the upper right-hand corner. Papa had forgotten this very important aspect of ANY picture. Then Kola placed the grass along the bottom, with each blade drawn bottom to top, like it grows. He underlined the grass with brown to picture the soil, and the brown he chose is dark like the rich dirt in Ukraine. Next came the house, with its upstairs window (notice that the cross-piece is a different direction from Papa's). The door and then the steps were followed by the tree. He drew the tree trunk and then asked Papa to draw the leaves. Jonathan sketched some very small leaves close to the trunk. "Ni, Papa!" exclaimed Kola. "Valicky!" (BIG!) Jonathan complied. Kola also asked Jonathan to draw Dakota, since he told us dogs are difficult to draw.

Then Kola drew the children in order of age, mostly with unique colors for each. Each one carries a backpack, which is important because it connotes school. Paul has hair (don't ask me why), followed by Adam, Rachel, and Sarah from right to left on the left side of the house. Then Kola drew David in red to the far right. He was finished, but Papa asked, "De Kola?" So, he drew himself, with backpack, and in the same red as David. Then Papa asked him to sign his name, which looks like English except for the "L," which is a lambda in Cyrillic.