It is easy to see where my daughter Aaliyah got her talent and charisma. Why, from her momma of course! At her young age she already knows how to appeal to others’ sentiments, especially to her dad’s. At age seven she was already known in LA for murals and was exhibiting her trompe l’oeil murals. How it happened, you ask – by working her charm on a famous Los Angeles muralist, however else? I take pride in saying she is my carbon copy, my mini-me.

Aaliyah got a whole lot from me, apparently, as people would often comment on how much we looked and sounded alike – from the piercing blue gray eyes and perfect head of ash brown hair to the high-pitched melodic laughter. Apart from the physical or the more observable attributes, she also inherited my penchant for drawing, painting and home decorating. These skills are quite evident in her own bedroom she practically designed herself.

You wouldn’t expect a seven year old to know about faux painting in Los Angeles or color consultation in Los Angeles. But my daughter had both services done in her room by no less than experts in the said fields per her request. Like I said, she had a particular fondness for decorating and did not even have to beg my husband to let her have her own way – room designing wise, that is. She got him to pay for professional painting service which was but a portion of her little bedroom remodeling project.

"A baby no more" was Aaliyah’s description of herself. She had us convinced that she was all grown up and had outgrown her (self-painted) wall mural phase. The said phase lasted a good three years – a total change of theme at least every month which equated to dozens of palettes of wall and oil paint and thousands of feet of blank stick-on wallpaper all charged in her dad’s AmEx.

My husband and I were thinking she took her 7th birthday much to heart, perhaps mistaking it for a coming-of-age or a Sweet 16th celebration hence the sudden feeling of ‘maturity’. The last theme she had – before she celebrated her 7th birthday – was Disney Princess, a clear favorite of young girls. Right after we got home from her exclusive party, she requested to have her room fully refurnished. She had the movie Avatar in mind, wanting to have a personalized blue alien-looking caricature painted on the walls, used for draping and bedding design. Being the charming girl that she was, we readily complied. We contacted professional consultants, painters and contractors to help her out though she insisted on doing most of the things on her own. One of the color consultants happened to be a muralist as well and upon seeing Aaliyah’s old hand-painted murals.

Quite a life my daughter leads. She’s indeed her mother’s daughter.