Coloring Beyond the Lines

Honestly, it is not effortless for me to watch as the crayon unabashedly entwines and encircles the page, using the word strays would be a huge understatement.  It has been a genuine conscious effort on my part, as a Type A personality, to fight the urge to correct, interject, direct, or even model what society considers a flawless coloring sheet.  You know – seamless completion, limited white space, and of course appropriate colors for each space, although in this age pink hair is applicable. My daughter is almost 3 ½ and her pages have looked the same for years now and she loves it and with great fervor and zest she creates her masterpiece.  Now, we are not these types of coddling parents that say how you should not hurt the child’s feelings or make them feel un-special.  Simply put, we refuse to narrow her possibilities.

This blog will not be taken up to alternatively boast about our daughter’s heighted intellect and other benchmarked accomplishments, all of which quantitatively mean a minuet amount in the long run.   The connection between this topic and our current life premise is distinct.  One motive of why we have chosen our path is to be an exemplar on living beyond the lines and how, by doing so, our child is learning skills infinitely more valuable than staying inside the black ink creating secondhand art.

Opening her horizons and ours this week we went on another brief jaunt to NYC.   Our application is awaiting the creation of the Amazing Race +1, which not only includes a couple but also a child.  (Although, by the looks of some families in airports that might be considered child abuse.)  Nonetheless, we are golden and ready to collect our $1 Million.  Train, taxi, subway, and bus plus riding on mom’s back as we hoof it through the streets all within the first 6 hours.  All smiles and belting out her own original songs about New York.  Ah, unique art in its purest form – a child’s voice!