i love to encourage my girls’ latest passions as well. sarah is quite the little artist and likes to conduct “art class” for me and olivia. i’m finding that olivia may be an art journaler. a friend gave both girls a wonderful giant coloring book that reads like a kids version of ‘wreck this journal’. it’s fun to watch her play around in there and expand upon the directions for each page. she’s very random with it, which is good! just opens a random page and starts going (of course, i’m secretly coveting her book over my own ‘wreck this journal’ as it really seems much more fun. )

i recall being about the same age as you when i discovered i might actually be good at that something called writing. my second grade teacher (i adored) had a haiku day or week, and i while i can’t recall the poem i wrote that garnered her praise, i remember the elements of it to this day, an owl, a branch, talons, hoot-hooting, blue night.i’ve tried to recreate it periodically, but i know i never quite get to the essence of what i wrote back then. i also recall feeling it was good even before her praise – that sense of poetry, of art, when it hits the pulse of the universe.