The Apple & The Tree

There are things about M that surprise me, not for how different she seems from me, but how much the same she is. How much she is like her dad and I. Two of the biggest things that A and I have in common is a love for books and art/drawing.

I devoured books and had my parents going to the library regularly. A is responsible for us having a library worth of books in the house. The collection just keeps growing with the newest addition of PDF's of books. (less space, same obsession)

When he was a kid, A drew detailed pictures of his gaming characters, and wanted to be car designer. I went to PCAE for visual arts. I wanted to be a potter and art has gotten me through the darkest times in my life.

While we have read to M from early on, and she sees us with books, we haven't really gone out of our way to force books upon her. Despite a room full of toys from dolls to a kitchen that is better stocked than mine, she always goes for the books. Asking to sit and read, asking us to read something while she reads something else. She loves books.

As soon as crayons were OK to give her, we've been letting her draw occasionally. I've known that at daycare they do regular art projects and that she likes them too. At home we don't do as much as we would if I were home with her all the time, but every weekend at some point we get out a sketch pad and the crayons and let her have at it. This weekend in the order of dinosaur books from Amazon was also a Doodle Pro. She hasn't put it down since she got it. By tonight she had figured out how to control it better, and she was upset when we took it away at bedtime.

Her apple is very close to our trees.