One particularly pleasant afternoon recently (this is Texas, after all), our daughter spent some time out in the addition, and she happened upon one of the framer’s rectangular pencils sharpened with a knife.  What I found later were her cryptic communications with the “workers” whom she sees mostly on Saturdays.

Surprise, she said.  She had actually created a series of arrows pointing different directions, directing them to her messages of support.  She is in kindergarten, and apparently her sweet teacher thinks that positive encouragement is the best way to high achievement.  I don’t disagree.

Good luck, she says.  I’m pleased that she wants them to do a good job.  Somehow I think she translates their good work into our eventual pleasure.  We’ve been admiring how pure the space looks when that’s all it is, space.  A supposed roof over our heads, the suggestion of windows.  We’d love to invite friends to share it with us, with magical twinkling lights hung from the ceiling joists, and tasty drinks and snacks.  Before it starts getting muddled by what I call the “guts”, the ducts, wiring and plumbing.  But it changes too rapidly and already the ducts are being installed for the kids to fear as “snakes” in the attic.  Did I say that?  Because somehow the little guy knows that’s what they are.

But back to the scribblings of a thoughtful girl in the making, with her grande finale…

PSS, I love it!, she exclaims.  Meanwhile, little brother is doing what he does best, which is to explore, throw scraps of wood and my beloved Heath salad plate from the upstairs windows, and climbing.  We had to relocate the ladder left up to the attic because he easily would have ventured out on the open attic deck.  There were no rafters up there at the time.  I do fear us all making it through this process in one piece.

Now her markings are atypical of construction sites.  Most often you see field sketches, details, notes for the door specifications, numbers and calculations.

Or better yet, the doodlings of someone who is perhaps distracted by the object of their fancy?  My daughter didn’t draw this…

Whatever the motivation of the doodler, I appreciate the idea of making notations on the structure.  It’s almost like burying a treasure to find later, to maintain that what we do now is important to someone in the future.  I’d like to think that the person who lives in our house much later would be interested to uncover something about us.  And perhaps they will, I haven’t been out with my pencil yet…