When I look back on my childhood, I can see a flood of creativity.  From the card and board games I created to some of the songs I used to sing, most of my life was spend inventing and reinventing the world around me.  It seems that we lose that ability when we reach our busy adult lives and it makes me a bit sad.  But since we have had children of our own, we are now surrounded by that same creativity again.

Nothing is more amazing than listening to your child when they don’t know that you are there.  It is in these moments that you really get to observe what is going on in their heads and get to see some truly amazing (and somewhat strange) things.  For example, just yesterday I was listening to my daughter sing a song that she created about male dog names and it was really quite funny.

It is interesting to watch how the environment around your child can influence their drawings, questions and even songs they sing.  A great example of this phenomenon is the pictures that my three year old draws.  After watching Beauty and the Beast, all the men in her drawings were very hairy (much like the Beast), and every woman was wearing a yellow dress.  I know that when we watch something else that she loves, her drawings will change to reflect that as well.

Sometimes I wish that I had not lost that creativity that I once had as a child, but I know that our society tends to frown on adults behaving with child-like imaginations.  So, I will just have to settle with observing my children and the manifestation of their creativity in the real world.  I know that it will be strange and unexpected, but it will be fun to watch.