So the princess and I went over to visit the museums at the Hotel Santo Domingo today, and then to hang out in the bar (drinking juice and hot chocolate) and taking advantage of their padded carpeting and low tables for walking practice.Liana LOVES art galleries. We spent about two hours walking around and looking at paintings and sculptures. She would get excited when we walked into a new room, and start pointing here and there. We would stop and examine certain pieces, sometimes spending minutes on a single painting or statue. She is 14 months old. Oh, I wish my parents were alive. They both so loved galleries, and I know that I was a regular gallery-go-er by 2 or 3. I don’t even know how young I started. But I cannot believe how much this little girl loves to look at art! As I’ve mentioned before, she is mostly drawn to images of people, animals or fruit. But today she enjoyed some rather abstract paintings as well. And she continues to LOVE wooden sculpture. Which is good, since mom has lots of wood at home.I cannot wait to share my dad’s art with her. I have a sketch that he did of me when I was just a few months old, hanging in Liana’s room. I am already imagining her pointing at it excitedly, examining it with a steady gaze, and then looking to me to see if my eyes are still on it as well. The San Miguel de Allende pieces I have in my living room might be too difficult for her to understand, but we will see. The images are so much like Antigua, they might appeal to her on a different level.I hope she likes the other things I have on her wall in her room… the textile piece from Peru with llamas and pretty people running around… the animal images, the mobile. Now that I know her tastes, I look forward to taking her shopping and letting her pick out more exciting things for her walls.Hey moms and dads out there…. Isn’t this fascination with art at such a young age a little unusual? I mean, gazing intently at a given piece for minutes, and then moving on to the next? Am I so taken with this amazing little person that I am in awe of things that she does that every kid just does? Or is there really something a little special about this fascination? Here in the apartment, there are certain pieces that we look at several times a day. She gets real pleasure examinging one particular embroidery over and over... and there is a face carved on a bench outside that she cannot get enough of.Unlike my dad, I have NO artistic talent. What do I need to be doing to encourage her to not only appreciate, but hopefully to also create art? We tried a marker on paper the other day, with only moderate success. It spent more time in her mouth than on the paper. What are the first media? Thick crayons? She’s way too young for play doh, right? Way too early for textiles, right? What should I be doing here? Her gross motor skills are a bit delayed, as are her verbalizations, (she communicates clearly with gestures) but her fine motor skills are excellent. (She unscrewed the cap to her bottle today and spilled canteloupe juice all over the sidewalk.) However, she is at the age in which everything goes in the mouth, and I am terrified of things that are toxic or that she could choke on. What should I be doing? Give me words of wisdom! Art and music? Well music is a constant presense in our lives, both live performances and my ipod selections, and stuff playing in stores or restaraunts or whatever. But art? I am so out of my element!