Toby smells like lick.

My life consists of an enormous amount of "out of the mouths of babes" moments, and beautiful moments of parenthood that make me appreciate every second.  I treasure so many facets of life.  If you've ever known anyone who was left and right brained, you can understand me a little better.  Yes, I am both, and I fight with myself regularly.  This oxymoron makes me adore math and lose everything, draw, paint and arrange flowers but meticulously schedule and clean.  I battle with the good and bad of both those sides of myself.  By profession, I am an accountant, but by choice I'm a creative teacher. 

My family is about to embark on an exciting change.  We are removing our child from public school and enrolling him in the Mommy school.  Yes, I am about to become the main source of his education.  Here again, I fight with myself.  I want to plan every single thing.  At the same time, part of the reason I am doing this for my child is that I want him to explore his creativity beyond what public school will allow.  He is asked to write a story, and he turns in ten pages front and back.  He loses his recess time because he goes above and beyond on these assignments.  The teacher may not expect even one whole page, but he wants to dive into a huge intricate story.  For this, in public school, he is punished.  No recess for you since you have a math worksheet to finish.  Yes, time management is a part of life, but at 7 years old, I want him to relish in every page of that story, not feel punished for writing it.

I decided a couple of weeks ago that I would start a blog to give myself a digital journal, but also to share with our family that is not so close.  There are also so many people moving towards homeschooling that I might be able to encourage with this blog as we make this transition.

On to the title of this blog, as you might be wondering what that is all about.  Jayden, my sweet 7 year old, discovered in the past week that I can paint and draw.  It was one of those things that never occurred to me to share when I was working a stressful full time job.  Jayden's kitten, Toby, loves to curl up in his lap and take a bath.  Jayden does not like this.  He loves to snuggle with his kitten, but right after a bath, "Toby smells like lick."  Which means he smells like a stinky fish because that's what his breath and food smells like.  Despite this revolting trait, Jayden loves Toby immensely.  So my first piece commissioned by Jayden (he begged me to draw his kitten) was of Toby, who still smells like lick.