My Monkey setting up for another day of arduous creating. Apparently this story was about Tinkerbell and the dog who sniffed flowers with butter.
My almost 2 year old daughter loves to draw and scribble in her Tinkerbell notebook. If you ask her about it she will go on and on about her work, usually yelling Bell Bell or talking about George and Minions in the few words you can understand. And at some point she will say ‘Like Momma’.
Like Momma, she carries a notebook just about everywhere she goes.(In fact, since her Happy Meals started handing out notebooks she may have MORE than I do). Like Momma, she sometimes only needs to scribble for a moment and sometimes she’s bent over the book for hours. Like Momma, she babbles somewhat incoherently at people if they interrupt her flow or she seems ‘stuck’ in her story.
A BIG part of me is proud that my daughter looks up to me, even though I’m sure that its mostly because she sees me all day everyday. I am proud of her creativity and interest in reading and writing. She isn’t quite 2 (we’re 3 months out from her birthday) but she is already fairly advanced (the hazards of her parent and grandparents all being teachers I suppose). I hope and pray that she keeps this curiosity and zeal as she grows up. That she retains the ‘weird’ and ‘quirk’ that makes up her joy right now and doesn’t let anyone tell her otherwise.
But do I want her to be a writer?
That is a tough question. I love writing. I adore putting my colored inks on blank paper and making the designs that pull a story from the air and my brain (same thing, right) and coalescing it in a form many will read. Most of the time I even enjoy the late night inability to sleep because I’m writing, or the jerking from a dead sleep at 3am because my subconscious finally figured out a piece of the story. I also make no money, have a tendency to block out people for days or weeks at a time while I write, get super mean if I can’t just sit and write when the mood hits me (not as much any more…toddlers tend to line out your schedule for you), and am usually tired from working on pieces when I should be asleep.
It has been said that writing is a lonely profession, except for the characters you make for yourself. Do I want my daughter to be lonely and listening to voices in her own head? Do I want her to wake up from a writing stupor and realize that she may have gotten fifteen thousand words written in a day and half, but she hasn’t eaten and hasn’t seen her friends in days? In the mind of a mother, do the pros outweigh the cons? I honestly don’t know at the moment.
The pros are worth more than any amount of cons in my life. If I don’t write I become irrational, erratic, and difficult to live with. Depression, anxiety, dark moods…they set in pretty quickly if I don’t have projects to think on and scribble out. My books and notebooks are some of my greatest joys, right up there with my kid and my flute. The lack of feedback and reviews on both my blog and my Amazon pages frustrates me to no end, but I wouldn’t stop writing for anything; I couldn’t. Do I want that kind of drive for my daughter….YES, YES I DO.
Do I want her to wind up a writer…probably not. But I suppose that’s going to be up to her to decide. Isn’t it?
Here there Be Dragons! 
That’s cute. My son does that with the computer. He takes it over and claims that he has to do his ‘work stuff’, which is watching and singing along with educational Youtube videos. He gets really angry if you interrupt his ‘work stuff’ unless a cupcake is involved.
Funny with wanting a child to enter an artistic path or not. You want them to follow their dreams, but you’re kind of protective of them. So the idea of them entering a difficult, occasionally unforgiving field is scary.
Monkey also has a Curious George lunchbox which she packs with a small notebook, some crayons, pony toys, etc. and carries to the stairs. At which point she tells me she’s going to ‘the chair’ to work with Papa. (My dad is the director of a Bible Chair, minister, and Biblical Studies Professor at our local college). She will sit with a book and ‘read’ it to us ‘for work’.
In the fall, when I start teaching, daycare won’t know what to do with her and her baby doll that she carries EVERYWHERE and ‘has to have to work’
My son is in school now, but during the daycare days he had a blanket. The poor thing is so beaten up, but he still wants to carry it around. Thankfully, they would put it in his bag once he found something else to play with. That definitely extended blankie’s lifespan.
My Mother is a toy maker in her off time and created this doll pattern when I was 2, so she has a lot of practice fixing them up! My doll (well the one that didn’t get stolen when I was 12) is currently in my bedroom, hanging out in style with patches and tattoos to match my own so if we can keep Silly from being left in the middle of the store, I think she’ll survive. As long as I’m not in charge of sewing limbs back on…
Gotta love the toys that make it out of childhood. Testaments to the endurance of inanimate objects.
I’m still not totally convinced that they’re inanimate. ;D
She may or may not be a writer, but she WILL have a love for reading which opens so many doors. I am behind on your blogs but always enjoy reading them!!
I’m glad that you enjoy them Ms. Cindi! Yes, I’m sure the Monkey will be a great reader, she already recognizes sight words like ‘Care Bears’ 😀