The artwork we woke up to today is much less advanced than that of yesterday, but it's just so cute I had to share. The level is similar to the family-oriented pictures he drew in December and earlier this month:

As best I can tell, he started off by drawing Mommy, Daddy, and himself.

Then, sitting with him,Fumie drew the babysitter that we had for a while yesterday, and a cat, after which Anthony mimicked the cat.

At some point along here, Anthony doodled some random other stuff as well.

The sitter apparently wrote some text, to which Anthony tried to add some as well.

That was all yesterday. This morning, we woke up to see that he'd added another cat, and some arrows whose meaning we don't know. (I discovered this paper after he was already at school, so when he comes home, I'll ask about it.)

I suspect that the cats are part of his recent interest in pretending to be a cat... “cat play,” such as he did with Mizuki-chan at our little party the other day. It's quite cute.

[UPDATE] It turns out that the “X” and arrows and cats are all related. He had made some kind of mistake (spilled some milk), which is represented by the “X”. The arrow represents “after that,” and the cat represents neko asobi (“cat play” — pretending to be a cat). The larger set on the left were drawn while he was with Mommy, and the smaller set later, by himself.

Anthony sometimes really surprises us in the morning with what he's done before we awake.

Sometimes it involves something bad, like pee-pee on the floor or poop under a table or the entire contents of a tissue box spread out over the floor.

But more often, it's with something that amazes us because it represents a huge leap in his creativity or in some skill, such as when he built a most excellent street sweeper almost completely from his imagination, or a new level of artwork.

Today was one of those “huge leap” days. The level of what he drew is well behind some of his peers, but it's really advanced compared to what he'd been drawing (which itself was a big step over where he was just a few months ago).

The picture below sort of matches one that he and I did together the other day, with a curving road bordered with grass, a dotted line down the middle (except on the curve, where it's a no-passing solid line), and arrows showing the direction of travel. It even includes one oddly-shaped arrow that mimics the “curve ahead” ones on the road here, that look odd from above but look like a natural curving arrow when viewed at a low angle.

It's wonderful enough that he could even reproduce that much so well, but then he added a fairly accurate version of the parking lot by the preschool, including the tiny door in the back wall that leads through a fairly dense garden to the sprawling two-section house of the lot owner (the first section having a very high step up from garden level to porch level), complete with smoke from the chimneys.

I should point out that Anthony had been behind the little door only once, for a short time, three months ago. I have no idea how he can remember the details as he does.

In the parking lot is our yellow Toyota Sienta (which is the subject of my first blog post), as well as a track showing the path that Mommy took when they drove, with crosses and triangles marking the places that Anthony was fussy.

The street has one traffic light, on which he added a component of his own design: the blue light goes on when the road is restricted to emergency vehicles. (Frankly, that would make a lot of sense in this earthquake-prone country!)

The one thing that's a bit of a mystery are the fruit stickers in the outside lane. The best description I could get is that they “show where to drive.”

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 55mm — ¹/1250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 400 — full exif

During the three-month ordeal of autofocus problems with my Nikkor 70-200 f/2.8 zoom, between suspecting a problem and finally having it fixed by Nikon, I learned a lot about SLR autofocus — how it works, and how best to test it.

There are plenty of autofocus test charts available on the web, but all of them were severely deficient in one way or another, so I ended up making my own. Its development progressed over time as I tried different approaches, discarding what didn't work and refining what did. (The chart I used in November shows elements of both.)

After Nikon finally fixed my equipment and I was able to retest it with the final version of the chart, I was pleased not only with how well my equipment worked, but also with how easily and confidently my chart allowed me to confirm it.

So, I'm finally ready to release my chart, with copious and verbose instructions on how to use it, as another of my photography-tech posts:

Jeffrey's Autofocus Test Chart

If you at all suspect you have autofocus issues with your lens or you body, I encourage you to check it out.

Some of my other photography-tech posts are highlighted in the box at right.

Eric Clapton?

Last summer, we got a cheap toy guitar for Anthony. Not long before he turned four last fall, he gave us an impromptu acoustic concert.

Just look at that fingering — this kid really knows his stuff!

He's comfortable having the big stage all to himself

Of course, not even Eric Clapton could make music with this piece-of-crap plastic thing with wet spaghetti for strings. Whatever noise Anthony was making with it could be construed as “music” only in the most generous rose-colored light that only a parent sees in... a drunk, deaf parent, that is.

Nevertheless, it was extremely enjoyable to watch.

He used one of those plastic things that keeps a bread bag closed for the pick.

As far as I know, he's never seen someone playing a guitar (except for Fumie and me playing with his toy), so I don't know where he picked up the proper look. But he's certainly got that down... he looks like a true pro.

(More pics here.)