if knowledge is the key, then show me the lock...

[alluringdisease]

my cousin krys came to visit last last week with her daughter grace. grace is, like most women in our family, quite a big girl for her age. she's almost five feet tall already, and probably weighs somewhere between 100 to 110 lbs. she has cut her hair incredibly short because she thinks she has "ugly" hair. her black hair is thick and curly, not ringlet curly, but the kind of curly that is hard for a ten year old to manage without a little guidance. and she dresses mostly in young boy clothing because she doesn't feel like she can look cute in the clothes that most of the little skinny girls her age wear. aside from her glasses, and the color of her hair, i felt like i was looking back on myself. i spent as much time as i could with her while she was here. we hung out at the house while the parent's cooked on the grill, and she showed me her favorite books. we went to san francisco and played at the exploratorium and stopped for lunch at a nice little burger place in sausalito. i even played dance-dance-revolution with her in my mom's livingroom for about an hour and a half. i wish i could be around her more though. show her that she's just as cute, if not moreso, than the other girls in her class. teach her how to do things to her hair to let her know that it's far from ugly.

one thing i was able to do for her though...get her excited about photography. she liked the idea of taking pictures of random things and making them "artsy". this was her favorite.



she's got a little work to do, but i'm sure she'll get there. hopefully her mother realized that we weren't going to warp her daughter's mind, and she'll let grace come and visit more often. i think it'd be good for her. and for us too.