My daughter was just looking into a spinning light-up toy we have. “Mama,” she said, “I see your future. You’re gonna become a famous blogger, and you’re going to become a celebrity, and you’ll be rich!”
How does that girl know just what to say?
Earlier today, she was editing photos she took last weekend of Barbie and assorted other Barbie-like pals. Yes, she was editing photos. Actually she did a really nice job of it. She used various “vignettes” in iPhoto that enable you to give that certain professional feel to images, like a fuzzy, oval border. It’s certainly easier for an eight-year-old than teaching her how to use Photoshop. After assembling some of her photos, for instance, Barbie posing next to the African violets on our side table, or lounging on the couch with her gold lamé purse flung in one arm, high over her head, Council put it all together in an iPhoto storybook layout. I guess it’s pretty expensive to go through the process of actually purchasing one of these, full-color and glossy or whatever, but it’s exactly what Council would like to do.
I had kind of brought this on by giving Council an oversized Barbie coffee table photo book a couple of years ago as a present. I loved the artfulness of the whole thing, and despite my problems with Barbie, I had to admit that this book was pretty cool. Council absorbed the book, and since learning to use our digital camera, has taken a lot of great shots while posing her Barbie. My favorite series is when she opened her window to a snowy, sloped rooftop below, and had Barbie make footprints and sit down to sunbathe wearing her brightly-colored summertime best.
Today’s pictures were accompanied by some text Council wrote up to go alongside the images in her “book.” These are in the same style as the few bits of text that are in her existing coffee table book: sort of a Barbie narrative, everything fabulous and bigger than life. Sometimes I feel sort of sorry for Barbie; things can’t be just regular or boring once in a while; they’re always amazing.
I’ve been considering setting up a separate Barbie blog or whatever-an-eight-year-old-girl-writes-about blog for Council, but I’m not sure if we’re ready for it yet. The girl is definitely a budding creative writer and she needs an outlet. I think her little soothsayer’s prediction of a few moments ago was really her way of letting me know that she’s going to become a famous writer. Preferably of the blogger variety. Right sweetie?