There comes a time in every mom's life when she asks the question:

"Should I use my child's artwork to keep the rain off my hair?"

OK. Maybe it only happened to me. This morning.

My 10-year-old has talent and only presents me with artwork he's proud of or a teacher has forced him to make for me. I keep it.

My 3-year-old is a different story. The piece of art that I decided deserved more protection than my hair was a large sheet of paper with three little hearts haphazardly glued to it. The hearts were numbered 1, 2 and 3.

It's not a keeper, but I still couldn't use it as an umbrella.

Preschool art is a curious thing. My daughter brings home awesome crafts. She makes me beautiful cards. Every once in a while, she paints something absolutely stunning.

And then there's the other stuff.

Every parent may think their child is brilliant, but find me the parent who thinks every piece of a 3-year-old's artwork is a masterpiece.

My daughter likes to do stuff such as sit down at the table, scribble furiously for about eight seconds, then announce that she's drawn a cow. The cow looks suspiciously like her portrait of her mommy, which looks like, well, a bunch of scribbles. We don't even get circle heads!

It's cute. I always wonder whether she thinks the two yellow lines she drew really look like her family, or if she just makes it up when someone asks her what she's drawn.

Cute or not, do I want to keep these scribbles forever?

Nope.

What I've been doing is keeping the best pieces and photographing the second tier (Yeah, I know I need a scanner).

The rest, well, it accidentally gets lost or tossed.

Anyone have better ideas on what to do with copious amounts of preschool art?

Reach Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com.