One of my four kids adores art. I adore him for this and want nothing more than to encourage and support him. One on one time with each of my kids can be challenging to carve out, but with my budding artist we always have something in common. We like to have "art dates" where we pick a location, set a time limit, and both draw the same thing. Every so often we are lucky enough to spend time in a beautiful spot like the Self Realization Fellowship Garden where we spent a solid hour drawing the same bench and surrounding scene. I was so impressed by his sketch and can't wait to take him out again! Usually, most of the time, our art date will be spontaneous, in our kitchen and the assignment is something quick: draw the toaster in ten minutes. We set a timer and when it goes off, it's pencils down no matter what. Then we take a step back from our work and look to see how we did, laughing about things that maybe we're not thrilled with, and ooh-ing and ahh-ing about what impressed us about each other's work.

Sharing time with  him like this is an experience I adore as a mom, bonding over the creative process and helping him learn to sit with his own frustration. I have learned so much about myself by parenting him. He competes with himself, and sometimes I see the adult mind trapped in the kid's body. He's a paper crumpler, meaning he does a sketch or painting or sculpture and immediately isn't satisfied and wants to tear it to shreds. I can relate to the feeling! It can be so hard to see sense that you see clearly but not yet have the skill to represent your vision with 100% clarity to others. I feel it's my job as his mom to help walk him through that frustrated feeling until he can accept that it's part of the process. He's 12 now and I'm pretty sure he's approaching a maturity level where he will make great strides in the next few years. I continue to tell him to destroy whatever work he wants to, but that sometimes keeping work around that you're not happy with is a great way to look back and reflect on the journey. Sometimes it's a great confidence boost to your future self!

Growing up, I was told that art was never anything more than a hobby and that in order to be successful an adult needed to have a "real" profession. Fast forward into mid-life and many, many things have shown me how absolutely untrue this statement is. Art can be a very real, grown-up profession that won't automatically leave you homeless or bankrupt. There is room for creative people. Probably, there is more of a need for us now than ever before.

I suppose I love drawing from life because it reminds me to slow down, to practice seeing things for what they are instead of what I *think* they are. What I see is the next generation of creative thinkers, hopefully taught to function in the current version of the world, but with a mind and heart strong enough to participate in shaping the future, not shy away from the challenge under the umbrella of "but I needed a real job".

Stay weird.

Love,

sketchy_mom

Groundhogs and dust bunnies and rules, oh my!

This parenting thing is like the movie Groundhog Day. I get in bed every night feeling like I made huge progress with the eternally growing List of Checks:

potty training
phonics
the laundry
manners
the week-old mail stack
(or really, the month-old mail stack if I'm being honest)
dust bunnies
the kids' sense of responsibility
dishes
taming sibling rivalries
the family calendar
the grocery list
budgeting
saving money for that honeymoon that we never took
ET-cetera, ad nauseum.

Exhausted, I collapse onto wrinkled, mis-matched sheets thinking, "The progress will show! It will be glistening with white cartoon sparkles and Mr. Clean shaking his booty off in a corner somewhere. I will not trip over toys, listen to siblings bickering, or have to tell someone not to eat a booger." I feel satisfied because I'm so tired. Anyone working this hard has to have something direct to show for it, right? Every night I think, "this is it! I've finally done it! Tomorrow I will wake up and they will take care of themselves just a little bit more and I can have an uninterrupted thought! Read an actual piece of news with my morning coffee instead of refereeing very real (and heated!) arguments over fake Minecraft villages while skimming headlines. I will be informed! I will reclaim myself! I will read books again! Draw! Write! Cook things that no one will complain about!" On and on this fantasy spins until I find myself suddenly awoken by a (very sweet) three year old hand tapping on my elbow at precisely 5:30 am. "Mom can you make breakfast?"

No honey, I can't make breakfast. I'm too busy trying to dream myself out of this craziness.

"Yes, of course. I'll make you breakfast."

You can see I'm an optimist and have issues with the word "no". I wake up and it is all just as I left it, barely contained chaos.

Groundhog? Dust bunny? A representation of my often-sublimated creative self?

Yet here I am attempting to carve out that time anyway. In nine dizzying years of parenting I have come to the realization that I do not fit neatly into any of the various mom-egories I've heard of. Yes, I'm making up a word. Get over it. Mom-egories. You know: Crunchy Mom, Vaxing Mom, Homeschooling Mom, Crafty Mom, Judgy Mom. Ok, no one ever admits they are a judgy mom but I see you judging and have done it myself. So yeah, I just don't really belong to one group. I mean, I've participated and befriended many in this parenting journey. I just don't know how I'd label myself, or anyone else I know in real life for that matter. I was like that in childhood so I'm not so surprised by it, it's nothing new, but lately I am getting more and more agitated by this idea that the loose ends must tie up somehow; that I am nothing more than a marketing algorithm on Facebook and my desires can be whittled down by statistic comparison to my reaction to friends' posts. We're all a little more mixed up and real than the internet tries to show us as.

So this is the place I've decided to come to carve out mental space. To *not* tie up the loose ends. To not fit in a box, not even my kids' lovingly cut, painted and duct taped rocket-ship box that is anything but square. To have a drink, draw, write, record the things that can't always be repeated in polite company; to sketch *for* myself but also to create a sketch of myself and the craziness of being a mom in a century I wasn't born in.

The good news: my kids are all alive. At the very least, I have figured out the number one job of parenting: keep them alive until bedtime. Inside though I am a sketchy mom who has just about nothing figured out, and who gets tired of all the input, advice and advertising surrounding parenthood. There is no perfect. No one knows what the hell they're doing and we're all making it up as we go along. We're not even getting out of here alive so let's wear the bedsheets as capes, jump on the sofa and draw with sticky fingers on the windows. At least for a little while. While the kids are asleep and can't make me stick to my own rules.

Stay weird.
love,
sketchy_mom

*stay weird*