Monkey See, Monkey Blog

My oldest child, age 9, is an artist. Although my husband would argue that she is the most even-tempered of our three kids (an argument he would win), she still has an artistic temperament, subject to the whims of creativity and the blows of criticism, constructive or not.

Lately, she is studying me. Maybe she's been doing it her entire life, but it's only recently that I've noticed that she's taking an interest in a few of my favorite pursuits: writing and photography. She has started to write a book, a kids' mythological fiction novel (like my own). And she has started not one but two blogs (like me), because her thoughts cannot be contained to just one.

"Why two?" I asked dumbly.

"Well, one is for my usual stuff and the other is for when I'm not feeling as...light," she said.

Which I, of all people, can appreciate.

Initially, I thought, "Nine-year-olds don't need to blog!" But then I remembered how carefully I kept my thoughts in a locked diary when I was her age (the old school equivalent of a blog, really). My next thought was "What if she writes about me?" But the thing is... I write about her. Why shouldn't she be given the same free reign to use that artistic license?

It's a new era in my parenting, but I'm not sweating it for now. As her 2nd follower (her dad beat me to the #1 spot), I'm happy to be able to see a glimpse into her inner world online... kind of like putting her clothes away and finding her diary unlocked in her underwear drawer. After all, if she didn't want me to read it, it wouldn't be out there, right?