Art Imitates Life

My daughter has always been really creative. She loves all things that have to do with art. Her artistic expression sure has exploded this past year. There isn't a day that goes by that she isn't drawing something. I love to see what she comes up with each and every day. My chest puffs up with pride as she sketches her friends, her baby brother, her family, birds, trains, or the view from her window. One of my favorite things that she draws are experiences that she has had or things that she has seen. This is really interesting to me because it's a way for me to see what has caught her attention and what has stuck with her.
Well, today, there was no puffing of my chest with pride. No, indeed. The girl decided to draw a picture of something that interested her...the bugs in my light fixture. The bugs that I should clean out but that I hope no one notices...

The black circle is the light fixture. The yellow is the light shining. And that green, creepy, crawly thing? Yep, that's my bugs! The orange at the top is a ribbon that she attached for hanging. So-o-o kind of her! Here, Mommy, let's hang the picture up so everyone knows that there are dead bugs living in our lights! Geesh!

And, to show that art does really imitate real life, here's the light fixture in question (I'll only show one of them but, actually, there are two of them)...

So, yes, I did promptly clean out the bugs in the light. The cleaning was accompanied by a million questions about bugs and lights. She is so curious! But first, here's my clean light...

I was having a hard time getting this picture. It was hard to see that the bugs were actually gone. I tried with different flash settings and I got this picture. I kinda like this one. It looks like a full moon!

Anyways, all those questions about bugs led us to do a little Mother/Daughter research. We found lots of really technical sights that definitely weren't at the 3 year old level. But then, we found a site with a transcript from an interview with Ms. Frizzle from The Magic School Bus.

We found our answer and some online learning fun! Bonus!

By the way, the bugs go by the light for several reason:

1. They use the moon and stars to guide them at night and they get our lights confused with natural lights.
2. They are attracted to warm things because warm things generally mean food.
3. They stay at the light because they get very confused when they realize that it is neither a celestial light nor a warm body to eat.

Now, on to clean that second light!