Daughter of an Architect

I'm sure there's all kinds of offspring of architects. I have 3 different kinds. My darling daughter just happens to be exactly what I would imagine a daughter of an architect to be - you know, if I was the generalizing type.

For example, allow me to introduce you to her desk in her room:

(this desk is an old closet door, from our 100 yr. old home, turned into a desk by her Pappa when he was an architecture student. Note: this picture could only fit her entire desk because I used the "panoramic" feature. It's a large desk!)

Now before you think this blog is #MyFail as a parent, allow me to explain...

Think back...waaaaaaaay back, like back to when God created the earth (if you're a non-believer, stay with me for a moment more!). In Genesis 1:2 it says, "And the earth was without form...", after which God organized and created the heavens and this beautiful earth and all magnificent things that are here on earth.

I like to think of Melaia's desk as the stage right before the organization and creation happened. We have a desk here without clear form. A whole lot of "un-order". A heck of a lot of CRAZINESS! However, I can't wait to share a bit of order that comes out of my daughter's chaos.

Before we do that, for complete fun, allow me to attempt to label this physical representation of what's in her little head:

Anything not labelled could be put into one of 4 categories:

1. misc.

2. It's so pretty

3. It's so cute

4. Hasn't made it to the garbage yet

When Melaia was a toddler, she was like most toddlers - if she was quiet, you knew there was trouble. Like the day I left her for two minutes and she peeled the keys off of my husbands brand new Macintosh laptop and proceeded to insert them into the disc drive. I came back just in time to save that laptop. Minimal damage thanks to the engineering side of my husband's brain.

Nowadays, if she's quiet for hours on end, I don't worry - as much.

On one of those wonderful days that she disappeared into her creative dome of complete bliss, she re-appeared with "hand lotion". It looked like creamy, white hand lotion. It smelt like creamy, white hand lotion but it felt like creamy soup.

How did you do this Melaia?

"Easy!" 

She preceded to tell me how she took a bar of soap, shredded it down with her "tools". (On her desk are random pencil crayons. She uses the unshaven side to peel/shred apart the soap into tiny shavings of soap.) She then adds water and mixes until she gets her desired consistency after which she adds bath salts to enhance the scent.

The shredding process.
Next time I buy a bar of soap, I now know to hide them as this was her third bar in two days.

In Melaia's world, she has perfected her consistency and has turned my favourite bar of soap (above) into a liquid hand soap. She then finds a cute bottle, steals my real hand soap pumps and tries to sell me her finished product. Are you ready for her first official product unveiling?  

< drum roll pleeeeeeease >

Funny story about this particular batch of hand soap: 

Melaia had created this batch of soap with a couple of friends who came over to play for the day. I thought Melaia was sharing her fun discovery with these lovely little girls. It turns out my daughter was "employing them" in the making of her soap. She simply "supervised"! I told Melaia that she was like a "boss" to these girls - just like her Pappa has a boss at work. She then asked me if being a boss meant that you had to help your workers get along because her friends (who are also sisters) didn't always get along and Melaia felt that this didn't help them to produce the amount of hand soap that she wanted them to produce. She confessed that it was very hard to be the "boss" and help your workers to get along. I proceeded to laugh. Out loud!

In Melaia's world, creativity isn't limited to a desk. The world is her studio! On a recent trip to Bluffer's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, we explored a lovely beach filled with copious amounts of clay. Melaia couldn't help herself. She HAD to bring some home. I tried to convince her out of it by saying that I didn't want to carry it all the way back to the van and it would be so dirty travelling home in our van but how can you say 'no' to her when she had discovered it AND agreed to carry it back to the van? I was trapped, in a good way, as I knew that her passion was carrying her and I knew that I needed to support her passion and ideas. You could tell that every step of the way back to the van, her head was stirring with ideas and thoughts about this clay. I even offered to carry it for her (guilt poked at me) but she only let me carry it for a few steps. She was fuelled with passion for that walk back. I was a proud Mamma.

Toronto, ON to Waterloo, ON
Clay

Over several days, she worked away on our front porch experimenting with this natural element. Again, occupied for hours. Even though it's messy, I love these projects where she losses herself in her creations. It all began with play but her play evolved beyond the typical clay bowl.

I briefly perused on the internet how to prepare natural clay in order to make true clay sculptures. This wasn't a process built for me. It was too long and complicated for my impatient brain. So, I let Melaia just discover on her own how to work with this clay and we would watch how it dried out in the natural elements.

After experimenting in this way, she then found a huge Canadian Maple Leaf and began painting it with layers and layers of clay. You know where this is going, don't you?!! After many days of drying, somehow she managed to peal off this leaf to reveal a clay patterned leaf without breaking it. Confession: I broke it after attempting a second round of photography. She forgave me and liked my suggestion of painting it!

She has yet to initiate painting her sculptures, so, here's what we have today:

Remember her desk? "Without form". Even her creative process seems completely "without form" or in "chaos". Now look again at her creations. Order. Beauty. Form. "It was good."

It is SO good!

Clay sculptures.
by Melaia