Oliver's Stack of Drawings

Oliver is so funny with his drawings. He used to do a few drawings a day, and I would keep them in a cupboard in the kitchen and then every once in awhile I cleaned out the pile of drawings and put the "keepers" in his art book.

Somehow, at the beginning of January, he started a new system. One day he made several drawings and he lined them all up on the counter. Then whenever he made a new drawing, he added it to the line. It quickly got too long for the counter, so he started stacking them instead.

Well, somehow since then, Oliver's stack has obtained a life of its own. It's seriously like a fifth child. Each morning he comes downstairs, gets the stack out of the cupboard, and puts it on the counter. He then spends all day creating drawings to add to the stack.

He's very particular about where it goes on the counter, but I don't really know the rules about where it can or can not be. Sometimes I have tried to move it over to a corner when I'm cleaning up, but it always ends up back in his special spot. I also am not allowed to tamper with the stack - sometimes I have taken a drawing that I particularly like out of the stack to hang it up on the fridge, and the next time I come into the kitchen the drawing is off the fridge and back in the stack.

I didn't know it mattered what else was on the counter with it, but apparently it does - a few days ago I came in and set all the mail down on the counter, and he came rushing over all concerned, lifted up his stack, and then casually asked me how long I was going to leave "all that stuff" on the counter. I said I didn't know and asked why it mattered, and he said he just didn't think the counter looked that good with the mail on it. As soon as I cleaned up the mail he put his stack back down.

I guess eventually we'll have to sort through the stack and put the good ones away and get rid of the bad ones. I counted yesterday and there were 116 drawings.