Charles has taken to drawing with sidewalk chalk. Erica apparently took the boys out one day last week and let them go wild with chalk. Charles loved it. He’s been out every day since then, drawing. He mainly makes lines and squiggles by himself, but what he likes best is adding highlights to things Dad has drawn. For instance, I’ll draw a house (which Charles will acknowledge by saying “house!”) and then Charles will make a large number of short, parallel, randomly distributed lines on it, in a manner somewhat reminiscent of a drunken woodpecker. Judging from his previously displayed artistic temperament, I suspect he is of the school that believes in attacking the canvas (or, in the case of Charles, the concrete). When Charles does this, I can see the glow of concentration on his face as he simultaneously destroys and creates in a virtuoso performance. It’s the kind of skill he needs if he’s to compete in world populated with other prodigies.