Clouds “God Is Painting Again” (Ages 3-8)
“Look.” I pointed up at the clouds in the sky. “God is painting again.”
“How come God doesn’t paint the clouds with colors?” my children asked.
“If God did, you couldn’t see the rainbows as well, could you?” I concluded.
Oftentimes I have to answer their question with the question, “What do you think?” to avoid showing my ignorance. That time, however, I got away with an answer that just might be true.
Despite their seemingly boring black-and-white presentation, clouds can display a wide array of shades, shapes, and mystery that provides for a child the equivalent of ink blots, a sky of free association, and a trigger for imaginations.
Clouds can appear dirty, heavy, and threatening, or fleecy, cottony, and billowy. They can signal mist, drizzle, and sprinkles, or thunderstorms, hurricanes, and tornadoes. Will it rain or will it snow? Is that a mass, a bank, or a cover of clouds? Are those clouds, cirro, alto, or stratocumulus? (A comedy team of clouds?)
Clouds are the signature of the weather. They are used to describe contrasting moods of being on “cloud nine,” or having a “cloud hang over your head.” To a meteorologist, clouds are just cooling water vapor in the air, condensing into visible water droplets, however, to children they are a way to pass the time of day by scanning the skyline and blurting out,
“There’s Barney the dinosaur.”
“There’s a pirate and a boat,” my oldest detected.
“Look, Pamela Sue Anderson.” (Well, I like to play too.)
“Santa Claus!”
“A duck!”
“A monster!” we proclaimed in rapid-fire order.
The clouds broke up and moved overhead. My youngest child cried because the pirate ship could no longer be found. I indicated it was still there, but a big cannon ball broke it into two pieces. My oldest child wanted to know whether they were the good pirates or bad pirates. I assured him they were bad. My children claimed to see a bee.
“Which cloud?” I inquired.
“There!” they pointed skyward.
Not seeing a cloud bee, I panicked, “Do you mean a cloud bee or a real bee?”
“Real! Real!” they shouted.
We decided this would be a good time to end the outdoor cloud game, and play an indoor—no danger of bees—game.
The next morning my oldest child woke up, looked out the window, saw no clouds, and began to cry. “I want to play the cloud game,” he whimpered. “Where did the clouds go?”
I hesitated for a moment and then asked, “What do you think?”
Rex Bowlby is the father of two boys. He is the author of the book, Why Would I Want the Toy, When I Can Have the Box? (101 Ways to Make the Most of Your Children, With the Least from Your Wallet*) *For parents with children ages 3-8. He lives in Los Angeles, California, USA.