My mother’s brother (my uncle) was a genius and a talented artist. Walt Disney tried to hire him. Instead he went to work for NASA as a scientist.

Unfortunately, few of the artistic genes and probably even less of the intelligence genes from my mother’s side of the family were passed on to me. I have no aptitude for drawing or painting though I feel certain there’s an artist in there somewhere.

Having had to live my life with an obvious lack of talent has caused me to make certain adaptations along the way. I’ve had to develop a certain set of skills to offset my limited abilities.

One of those skills is tenacity. You might call it persistence. You might even call it stubbornness. And, I’m sure some would call it stupidity (because it’s sometimes hard to tell where stubborn stops and stupid starts as there seems to be some overlap).

So, what I’ve lacked in ability, I’ve had to make up for with the capacity to rebound from failure. Since I didn’t have the ability to do things right the first or second or third time (or more) in most things I’ve attempted in life, I’ve always had to revise my approach and try another way.

I’ve had to persist…

So now I’m raising children for the second time, and alone.

I don’t know for sure, but maybe some of the reason I’m a second-time-around parent trying to figure out what I should be doing is that I probably didn’t do such a good job the first time.

But, whatever the reason, getting to have a parental do-over has given me the opportunity to revise (and revise, and revise again) my approach to parenting.

And, it has also given me the opportunity to become the artist I could never be before!

Only instead of working with paints and brushes on a linen or paper canvas, my canvas is two little lives, my paint is love and affection and my brush strokes are made with much care and concern.

And, I finally might be acquiring some of those artistic skills that run in the family because see how my paintings look so far –>