My mom recently mailed me some art that she’s had stored away in boxes since I was a kid. This drawing of Pongo, from 101 Dalmations, I did when I was 7. The lines at the top that get cut off are where I wrote “bad drawing!!!” largely across the top of the page. I’m glad mom snatched this up before I had a chance to toss it–I wish I still drew this good!

I gave this drawing to Chris this year for his birthday since he loves nautical themes so much. There are a lot of questions I would love to ask my 6-year-old self about this drawing. Like, why does the cloud get an outline, but not the chimney smoke? Why do pirates get facial features, but not princesses? Is that a spy approaching the ship in scuba gear? The other thing I love about this, which you can faintly see, is that I drew it on the back of my (still uncompleted) math homework. Who wants to do fractions when you can draw pirates?!