A mother's artful pride

By Lauri Jon

My almost 3-year-old daughter Maricella just started preschool and much to my relief, she LOVES it! It means that mommy gets three and one half hours to herself Monday, Wednesday and Friday. (Yippee!)

Maricella's already attached herself to a best preschool girlfriend, Michaela. She looks forward to feeding the class Beta fish, Patrick, and is going pee-pee on the potty nearly every day, while at preschool anyway. Yet much to my surprise, when she arrives every morning, the first thing she does is head over to the easel to paint. Being a professional artist, I can't help take pride in the fact that she's already calling herself an "ARTIST!"

Her first preschool painting (see left) surprised me with its complex composition of long lines. (Resembling a hand or a peacock.) And although this first painting was monochromatic, subsequent paintings have shown her appreciation of color. (OK, I'm stretching it a bit, but we've never done a lot of painting here at home together, before she attended preschool anyway, and it really tickles me how much she loves painting.)

Do I want her to become a fine artist? Not necessarily, but I want her to have the passion to pursue any and all of her dreams.

And I still look forward to seeing the new painting she does each day.

It's just a mother's artful pride.

Has your child showed an interest in your profession or something that's related to it?

Lauri Jon Caravella is a forty-something-else expatriate New York City woman, living with her family in a picturesque English-style Storybook Cottage in Southern, California.

Comments

[Janet a.k.a Wonder Mom]

I love it.
My daughter (almost 3 too) and I are starting our very last "Mommy & Me" today. After this year, it is off on her own to be her own person. Your post has made me more confident that she will be fine. With or without me.

[amy h.]

I've always asked my son, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" and I've usually gotten the typical answer: "a firefighter" or "an astronaut" . But boy did my heart flutter the last time I asked him and he said very seriously, "Mom, I want to be a writer" whooooo hooooo! ;)