TODAY, A CARTOON DRAGON. TOMORROW, PIXAR STUDIOS, BABY!!!

Okay, maybe not tomorrow. But he's on his way. He is.

He's always loved to draw. Always. I can't even count on all of our hands and feet put together how many drawing pads and notebooks he's plowed through over the past 3 years. I could seriously light a bonfire with the boxes I've got stored in the garage.

But today, he started his first real art class. With a real art teacher.

And although she confirmed what we already knew, that he is, of course, a beyond-brilliant child prodigy, it was great to hear it from an objective 3rd party. Well, maybe not so unbiased, as I may have been waving the check in front of her face at the time.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's rewind a little, shall we?

Initially, shortly after registering him for the class online, I became concerned when the address we were supposed to arrive at for class differed from the address on the flyer and invoice. (This is always the point in the movie when Amy leans over to me and accurately and annoyingly predicts the ending.)

Then, when we pulled into the mostly residential area and drove by what appeared to be the correct address just at the very moment that the garage door was opening and the flea market tables and walls strewn with arts and crafts screamed "let us out! let us out!" we realized that this, in fact, was the studio, and that she, in fact, was a lying deceitful pig who was scamming us for what little I could spare from my Starbucks & Stilettos Fund.

And all I could think about was how these people were these big awful pervs. How they must have this huge child porn industry operating out of their uppercrust suburbia home. And how they must've taken one look at my gorgeous little boy and thought, "Cha-CHING!!!"

But no, turns out that wasn't true at all. Or at least not in the way it went down in my head. And this is why you should not judge a book by its cover. Or an art studio by its oil stains and piles of laundry, apparently.

Because, as it turns out, there was no one else who'd signed up for the same time slot as us, so, as luck (or fate) would have it, Chago ended up getting one-on-one lessons for two whole hours.

He sketched and drew, and she talked to him about values (the black and white kind, not the moral and ethical kind). They moved from pencil to paint and blended colors together. He learned to keep his area clean and neat "like a real artist." And they chatted about the kinds of things he liked to draw, the kinds of books he liked to read, the kinds of cartoons and comics and superheroes he thought were cool, and the kinds of stories he liked to tell, ultimately coming to the conclusion that for his final project, he would write and illustrate his own book.

His. Own. Book.

At six.

He's thrilled, and glowing, and anxious for Fridays to get here. And I'm just a proud and mushy mama mess.

...