A Proud Momma Moment

Okay, proud mommy alert!

This is a picture of artwork that Maestro did to participate in the 2008-2009 National PTA art competition called Reflections. The theme that they needed to create work for was "WOW!". Maestro's artist statement is a little long, but it says that when he wakes up early in the morning and it snowed the night before, it makes him say WOW! when he looks out the window. As you can see, he even drew himself in the window looking out. He put a lot of work into this and we thought he did a great job, even included a shooting star. What's not great about that? We thought for a then 5 year old (he had to do this back in October), he did pretty well.

He also won an "excellence" award and placed in the top 3 in his school. He competed (oops, not allowed to call it that any more, hhhmmmm, let's see, participated? Would that work?) with 132 other children in his school and only the top 3 get to move on to the statewide competition (or whatever they are calling it). Apparently, it's now taboo for kids to compete in art. Okay, I guess it's subjective, artwork is and all that, but I think some amount of competition is healthy. They are touted when they are star athletes, why can't they be touted when they are star artists? Now, as you can see, he's no Picasso or anything like that, but he worked really hard on this project and I think that it's okay to let him know that his hard work paid off for him this time. So many times, especially in boy circles in life, it's only the sports that matter. Well, me having an artist's soul and a very artistically talented husband, we're okay with the fact that perhaps we won't have a star athlete, but he's got some other talents that matter just as much. Like his amazing musical abilities (along with Little Red, they both are something else on the drums!). And the fact that his artwork is important to him, he's always drawing something, he loves to draw. A lot.

There were over 500 children's artwork on exhibition last weekend from area schools. I helped to organize the showing and have put in a lot of hours in my first ever chairing of a PTA activity (boy, I bit off a lot for my first try, I'll tell ya!). But it was all worth it for Maestro, who seemed to really get it at the show that his picture was cool, and he really enjoyed seeing what the older children came up with. And one of the highlights was also seeing his name in big letters up on the big screen. That was exciting for him. I personally think that someday, we're gonna see him up on a stage, whether it's in a band or theater. He's so incredibly dramatic about everything, not to mention completely outgoing, I think he'll enjoy those moments. I was in drama at school in my youth (Grease was my most fun), and I would like to think he'd enjoy that too. Except, shhhh, don't tell him, he's a little tone deaf, so we'll have to work on the singing part of that!

Just wanted to share with you a proud momma moment. Kinda WOW! for me, too.

Wishing you your own proud moments, ~Peacemom