Bragging Rights and Art

Lest this blog title mislead anyone, let me first start with a disclaimer: In no way will I be bragging about my artistic ability, since said ability ranks somewhere around -2147483647 on a scale of 1-10.

But I have been feeling pretty proud of myself (read: smug) of late for at least one maternal skill I possess en masse. OK, maybe it's not so much a skill as an....well, I digress. Let me get straight to the point. Whatever other motherly faults can be attributed to me, one thing that I do dang well is chronicle Lily's childhood.

Photo albums are threatening to take over the bookcases in the living room; I've actually kept up with the baby book beyond her first 30 days on earth; I kept a (non-online) journal the first year of her life; I write this blog; I purchased her "first tooth" and "first hair locket" keepsakes years ago - even though neither has been used as of yet; I save birthday cards, programs and tickets from the circus and "Sesame Street Live"; and I even have a tape recording of her making delicious gurgling and babbling sounds when she was a baby.

Whether or not Lily will even WANT all this memorabilia when she's older is a moot point in my opinion. Better that she not want it and I have it then she want it and I don't. Any anyway, I have fun doing it.

So all this is just a big lead in (WARNING: promotional plug coming) for a fantastic new site I've discovered that combines my love to chronicle with my other pet passion - to organize something! It's a Web-based company that will digitize all your child's artwork and preserve it forever in a wonderful keepsake photo book. Forget about the glue coming off the artwork in years, or the originals getting ripped, stained or eaten by the dog. I'm not kidding on that last point - think of how many kids' art projects contain elbow macaroni. And at in least one instance of Lily's work, goldfish crackers. This solution takes care of all those contingencies. Now I'm still waiting for my final order, so I may be a bit premature in lavishing praise on the site, but the product samples online look fantastic. I can't wait to get my book. Check it out yourself if your interested. The URL is www.thepicassokid.com.

Now only if I hadn't sent in my order to The Picasso Kid before I read my friend Susie's blog http://constantlyrelocating.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2008-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-07%3A00&updated-max=2009-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=50 and saw her reference to another cool Web site that lets you make free form art out of words. http://wordle.net/. Because the word art would have made a wonderful entry in the Picasso Kid. But I did place the order - oh well - and first I have to (read: Peter has to) figure out how to enable Java applets on my work computer anyway.