Kaylen's Future Career

I wrote this back in early December, and for some reason never actually published it. Just found it again, so I thought I'd share...

So this morning on the way to daycare, Kaylen was talking to me about writing. She's asking me if I know some author - Lois somebody, but she pronounced it like "Lewis". I said it sounded familiar, but I couldn't remember what books she'd written. Then she told me some books that she'd written: Planting a Rainbow, Color Zoo, and Color Farm. I'd never heard of these - strange. It was Lois Ehlert - they must be learning about her and reading her books in school. Kaylen didn't tell me that she was also an illustrator, and illustrated Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. That's probably where I'd heard her name - this book was the basis for a whole big unit they did in kindergarten last year. Anyway...

Kaylen goes on to tell me that she would like to read lots more books because she maybe wants to be an author someday, but she has to read lots more books so she doesn't write the same thing as someone else and it would be like stealing because they wouldn't know that she didn't read it somewhere else and copy it, "because that would just be a big mess!" Wow! Where does she learn this stuff - that's a big concept for a 1st grader!

So I went on to tell her that I think she's a really good reader and can read lots of books between now and when she wants to write books, and that I think that would be a really good job for her, to be an author. I went on to say that I know one author, and another friend who in the process of writing a book, and told her who they were and how we knew them. Kathy Cassel, who is adopting twins from the same orphanage where Elijah and Josephine live, wrote the book she has called Just For Me: The Bible, and others. I've never met Kathy in person, but we "talk" online. Also our friend Nikki loves to write, and Kaylen and Nikki's son go to the same school. (Update: We actually met Kathy in person - in Florida when we received our children from Haiti.)

She thought that was pretty exciting, but then says, well, she still wants to be a rock star, because she wants to be a singer and dancer on stage, but maybe she could do both. I told her maybe she could. Then she goes on to tell me all about how she and a couple friends are practicing to be rock stars. She likes to sing, but she also likes to do the dancing parts. Then the conversation moved on to who her two friends are that she's practicing rock star stuff with, and then we arrived at daycare.

At this age, who knows... She'll probably end up doing something completely different.

Kaylen LOVES animals (especially dogs), and we told her a couple times that maybe she'll want to be a veterinarian someday. We told her about a couple people we know who are veterinarians - but she thinks she wouldn't like the icky stuff like surgery (that I was fascinated to watch when I was a kid on the farm and the vet would visit). But these conversations usually end with, "Well, you've got lots of time to decide what you want to do when you grow up."

Too cute to not share - and will save for her to read someday.