My oldest child, Grace, turns ten today. The clichés have flooded through my mind for days now. Yes, they really do grow up too fast. Yes, I really would give very nearly anything to freeze her in time. (No, I wouldn't. Yes, I would. That's a cliché too!) Yes, I look at my daughter and feel as if my heart might burst, even as I realize that the years ahead will be filled with conflict and sadness mixed with the joys and happiness. Gone is my little baby, and here in her place is a young woman in the making. If I could spare her the pain of adolescence, I would gladly take it on myself, and my own adolescence was miserable. Still I would go through it three more times if my children could avoid it, except that I fear that the conflict and pain is key to growing up, as breaking out of the shell is key to building strength in baby birds.

I have reached for analogies, struggling to find a way to explain the odd mixture of pride and joy and sadness that flows through me on this day, but all analogies fail to express it in ways I could have understood before I was here myself. Perhaps, like the pain the adolescence, this is part of growing up.

My daughter is an artist. She has the soul of an artist, an artist's eye, and real artistic skill. She can sculpt, paint, and draw, and she even has a good grasp of photographic composition. Her bedroom walls are covered with her works in acrylic, oil, watercolor, and pencil. Her "studio" corner is piled high with works in progress and items of inspiration. Most children spend time creating art when they are very young, in part because we encourage them to do so. Eventually most of us find other things on which to spend our time, and stick with doodles in margins. Grace has passed through the crayon phase and the pencil phase and the doodle phase, and now studies great artists and attempts to duplicate their styles, building a foundation from which she will later develop her own style. I enjoy seeing her new creations as she brings them home from art classes or finally brings them out of her bedroom, and I wonder what place art will have in her future life.