Parenting is an art, not a skill

Defiant.
ODD
Spoiled.
Special needs.
ADHD.
ADD.
Challenged.

Exuberant.

I started doing art as soon as I could hold crayons I think. I am told that I would sit in the corner or the quieter (lonelier) part of the room and do art. I could make crafts out of everything from rocks to paper mache. I distinctly remember in 7th grade using old glass 7 Up bottles to make colored water that sat in the window sills as art.

In 10th grade, Mrs Josifa Casey (RIP) was my art teacher. For the next 3 years, I had to learn technique from a French red haired woman that smoked More cigarettes between classes. I spent much of those 3 years in the shadows of a girl named Shea that drove a cute Honda civic hatchback. Shea could do better color scales than I did, better perspective and spoke better French than I did. At art shows, my parents were the only people that bought my art. In fact, I still have that art folder full of homework projects (secretly because I am proud.) I got an F on art history paper about Seurat because I didn't know how to do research much more than using an encyclopedia. His art and contribution to the art community is now burned in my brain. Oddly, I really respect his work and probably use his techniques.

For many years, my classic art (painting & drawing) sat in the back corners, storage units and unattended closets. I did some crafty stuff, but nothing I considered art. I saw art and thought, "I could do something as cool or cooler than that. People pay for that?!" I took a mandatory art class in college. I think I maybe got a C. I never got rid of my art stuff though because I never wanted to lose that connection.

A couple of years ago I started painting again. Painting is a self-critical process for me riddled with tangential thinking about everything from becoming the next Renoir to ripping myself apart for coloring outside of the lines or making my paint brush move wrong. When I'm done, often I only share my art with Ryan until I'm done criticizing myself. Then, I test the waters by showing a couple of my closest friends. After that, if I'm over myself, I show people. It is now a very therapeutic process to hang my art in my work office. Sometimes I don't tell people that it's mine to see what they say. Rarely are they as critical as I am. There is one girl who consistently tells me that my paintings don't look finished. To rescue my ego, I tell myself stuff like, "She's got Axis II features."

Enter Parenting.

My artistic development is the same as my parenting experiences for the last 3 years. It is as big as a metaphor that I can paint for you. I have come to realize that no parent before me can teach me skill like Mrs Casey can. So many parents replicate the role of Shea in my life. Often I cower in the shadows of moms who cooo over their children and praise themselves for how much they love parenting, how smart and advanced their children are (blah blah blah.) I constantly catch myself comparing my work of art to theirs, their technique to mine. Parenting doesn't come in a rough draft, final version, museum quality or replicated version though. There are many critics. At the end of the day, my masterpiece was created with love and passion. I paint over it sometimes and try a different technique.

The last couple of weeks have been especially brutal parenting weeks for Ryan and I. So many titles, labels and sayings have been said to us, some of them we've said to ourselves. It is almost as brutal as the first 5 months of her life were for us.

And then. The masterpiece comes together. Today, I sat at the table with my 48" canvas, some dark blue paint and 2 brushes, totally overwhelmed with what my head wanted to get on canvas. Lena & I pulled up her "little table" next to mine. While I worked on my most recent act of criticism, Lena painted on her construction paper with her water colors, beginning the same form of expression that I did as a small child. During this moment, Lena started painting all over her hands and arms. She had the most spectacular palette of green, every shade you could imagine running together on her and onto her white dress. And I loved every single shade.

Paint on girlfriend!