a moment of picturing my girls
I’ve visited each of my daughters’ classrooms as a ‘mystery reader’ in the last week. It’s such a delight seeing kids’ faces light up for something as simple as sitting down to have a story read to them. Reading is a big part of our lives at home, and it’s fun to bring that into their schools and share it with their classmates.
They’re growing up quickly, turning 4 and 6, in August and September of this year. Life in our family feels very full, brimming with excitement and exhaustion and music and color and hair-ties and orange juice and little shoes and bath time.
I take a lot of photos of them, most with my phone, and fewer with my “real camera” - just glancing at my photos app now, it’s tallying 5,147 photos of the almost 6 year old, and 3,213 of the almost 4 year old - so almost 800 a year for each of them? Sounds about right.
I draw and paint them less frequently, but it’s meaningful and feels good when I do. I enjoy taking the time to really, really look at them - really notice the color of their hair and eyes, the contour of their cheekbones, and the curve of their smiles. Their eyes appear almost supernatural to me, the grey/green/blues shifting and melting and gleaming in what seems like a different way each time I look at them.
So, here’s my latest paintings of each of them - I think it’s pretty close to getting at who they are, right now - but they grow so fast, I’ll need to keep up with new ones soon.
