Color my World

When I walk into the kitchen and see this, I just cannot take it. I cannot take how precious my Ainsley is with a paintbrush in her hand, a free-bird in flight. Without any help, she set up her own make-shift studio, donned a beret she found in the dress-up box, and channeled her inner Picasso. Sure, I lost a few years from my life when I considered what might have become of my kitchen table, floor, and walls when I saw that she had helped herself to the paint supplies. But I'm happy to report that everything looks just as lived in and sticky as it did before she set to work.

Know what I really love the most? That she just sat down to paint and didn't doubt her ability to make something beautiful. She hasn't always done this. With an artistic older sister in view, she has been know to compare her work to her sister's and feel like she's not measuring up. What I carefully remind her, in those moments of self-doubt, is that Emerson is three years ahead of her. Comparing Kindergarten art to Third grade art isn't a fair contest. I remind her that Emie's had three years to learn new techniques and skills that she didn't have when she was in Kindergarten. I can teach this lesson without a blink, yet I'm guilty of the same unbalanced comparison in my own life.

Don't we all do this? We look at the success, the impact, the growth that someone is experiencing well into the process and compare it to our own meager first steps. It's as though we're in Kindergarten and feel dismayed that we haven't yet mastered pre-algebra and long-division like our Third grade neighbor. When we've missed a really important truth - we are in Kindergarten and we are rocking it.

We have everything we need to create something beautiful right where we are. Let's be sure that we do.