Happy Expressions

We moms try so hard to capture and document each stage of our child’s development. From journaling to scrapbooking, our creativity (and our time!) is stretched to the max.

Here’s an idea—let your child’s creativity speak for itself. We’ve found two local services that help your child celebrate the person they are right now—and give you memories to hold onto forever.

Tune In
First off is a visit to www.mytune.ca, where we learn about a unique means of capturing your child’s personality in song. Vancouver musician Duncan Minett brings his portable recording studio to your home and spends about half an hour interviewing your child about their world, covering topics such as hobbies, pets and friends. Then he incorporates the actual interview into a customized song that’s all about your little one. The result is your child’s voice—the one that will change so much in years to come!—woven into a backdrop of music that both mom and child will enjoy.

Parents are given a CD of the three-minute song (with a second track containing the complete interview), as well as an MP3 version for sharing with friends and grandparents. Cost is $250, and song samples can be heard on his website.

Won’t that beat listening to The Wheels on the Bus when you’re driving to swim lessons?

Picture This
If you’d like to bring some colour to your life (and your wall), consider treating yourself to a session with My First Masterpiece. Jillian Hunter brings out the artist in your child, setting them up with professional-quality paints and canvasses that make their work glow. Our tester (who said Jillian was great with kids!) took her barely two-year-old twins for a session, and they all loved the results, even though the little girls had never painted before.

The children’s paintings are set off by mats and elaborate frames, and are equally at home in the nursery or above the living-room mantle. Cost is $125 per child, or $100 if you put together a group of five or six. While most sessions are run Mondays out of St. David’s Church in West Vancouver, Jillian will also visit other parts of the Lower Mainland for groups of three or more children.

There are some things about mothering youngsters that we’ll be happy to forget—the tantrums in the grocery store, for instance. But with these custom creations, we’ll always have that part of them we’d like to hang onto forever.

My Tune
www.mytune.ca
(778) 240-3865

My First Masterpiece
www.myfirstmasterpiece.ca
(604) 922-1684

Tested by Zoe & Juliet P., North Vancouver