A Toddler's Art Appreciation

Many years ago my Grandma Marilyn Cowley painted two canvases with children's toys on them.  Toys I remember playing with when we would go to visit her.  When she passed away several years ago, these paintings were something that I inherited from her.  Up until now I have been storing them and waiting to get them framed before hanging them up.

On a whim after our recent move I hung them up in our youngest daughter Kyrilene's room.  And she reacted in an amazing way.  Immediately she was telling me thank you for her pictures and describing them to me.  She is only two years old.  This has gone on every night for a month now, until yesterday.

Our A/C died five days ago and we have had all the windows open trying to keep the house bearable until the repair can come out to fix it.  Well yesterday we had a good breeze going and it managed to knock one of the paintings off the wall.  I decided to leave it down until the wind stopped.  Poor Kyrilene was beside herself lamenting the loss of her picture and wanting to know where it went.  Logically explaining wind and why we didn't put it back up went right over our little girl's two year old head.  Eventually I distracted her with a treat and this morning the first thing we requested was her picture.

Once I put it back up on the wall she was beaming her smile at me with tears in her precious little eyes and saying "thank you mommy, my picture" or over and over again with little toddler arms wrapped around my legs hugging me with joy.

I never expected my children to become so attached to paintings I appreciated because of my childhood memories.  Especially not the child who never even got to meet her Great Grandma in person.  I would like to think that they must have had a special relationship in Heaven before our little girl joined our family.

It also reminded me of the crafting heritage I learned from her.  Grandma was an artist in every sense of the word.  She was always creating something whether it was a new painting with her artist league or the Christmas ornaments she made each year for all of her extended family.  I always looked forward to our big family Christmas dinner and seeing what beautiful creation she had made that year.  She was an amazing example of someone who was not afraid to try making something new.  It taught me that you don't have to be afraid to try something you have never done before.  This lesson has helped me teach myself many things:  cooking, sewing, drawing, painting, scrapbooking, writing, canning, blogging, gardening and even homeschooling my children.