So it goes...

Photo credit: Roost Photography Very soon, my son Ben and I will be touring the University of Wisconsin - Madison. I am not sure when we moved out of the diaper stage into the college visitation stage, but I am pretty sure it happened overnight. And I'm even more sure that a year from now when he's away from home I will be just as befuddled by the quickly passing time as I am today As part of the whole senior preparation, we had his senior pictures taken by our friend, Brandon, of Roost Photography . Let's just say looking at these pictures of my grown son did not help matters. It was kind of like a kick in the gut. Here he is, all grown up. The pictures, as you can see, are pretty amazing and totally capture his spirit. But his spirit is 18 - a real, live adult - and I can dislike that just a bit. Credit: Roost Photography I miss his little buzz-cut face and sort of resent that he now shares shaving cream with me. Not because I don't like to share, but ...

I went to my daughter's senior high art show last night at Waukesha South. This is an annual celebration where the seniors who have been in the program for at least 3 years, get to display their artwork. There was every kind of art there from pencil sketchings, to pastels, oils, multi-media, jewelry, ceramics, and even some video. As we walked around looking at the art after the long awards ceremony, I was amazed at the quality of some of the art that was displayed. (Granted, my daughter's was the best of all, but hey, who's keeping track?) Some of the pencil and charcoal drawings were so good they looked like photographs. There was a picture of a large parrot that must have taken hundreds of hours. It was beautiful. One student received a $75,000 scholarship to the Chicago Art Institute for her portfolio of work. Amazing talent. Given that I cannot begin to conceptualize a piece of art that I'd want to make, let alone the fact that I couldn't make it, well, this ...