Feeling less crummy than Monday though, I decided to be a good mommy and do a project with my kids. I like "projects" or "crafts" - you know, clay, painting, building, sewing, cooking, paper mache, etc - they can be very therapeutic, and they help create a casual atmosphere where people can talk. But projects create messes! We have ENOUGH messes! When projects are finished, horror of all horrors, children want to KEEP them, you know, IN THE HOUSE. And they want to keep ALL of them, for YEARS. We have ENOUGH stuff IN the house. I try to arrange opportunities for my kids to do projects AWAY from our house and to somehow NOT bring them home. I know, I'm SO mean.
Worse than that, when my children are invited to birthday parties, my first instinct is to give a craft project as a gift. I know, I know - cute clever gift idea, and NOT just another toy, but the poor parents, the mess, the space it will take up. But I forget all that when I go to grab something and wrap it up. The "teacher" in me says, "ooooh - what a cool project, the kid will love it! AND it uses their imaginations and creativity, and does NOT use batteries, it's not just another movie character toy ..." and I get all excited about it - until the child opens it and the parents say that false "thank you" through a clenched teeth smile and I realize I just did it again. Sorry everyone out there I've done that to, especially if it was a 3 year old's winter birthday and your son/daughter has been bugging you everyday to be able to open up their paints and it's too crummy to go outside. I should go back to giving yarn projects, at least they don't stain ... or maybe origami ... or paperdolls ... or pearler beads ... or indoor herb gardens - they're edible ... or science kits ... or paint your own birdhouse - ooops, I'm back to paint again!
Camping is a great time to do crafts. Everyone and everything is already slightly damp and/or dusty and/or sticky. We already have to wash everything anyway, we're already wearing play clothes, and we're already outside, usually near water we can go jump in and rinse off in. It's perfect for doing messy hands-on projects. (Maybe that's why my kids like me better as a mommy when we're camping. AND I get to swim AND it's summer with long daylight hours - I'm a better person under those conditions. I like me better when we're camping.)
Anyway, this recent project was low mess and edible (nothing to have to find a space for!) I bought the refrigerated pop-open cans of pre-cut bread stick dough on sale, used Mom's counterspace and oven, so the kids could make their names in bread sticks and then EAT them. Simple enough, but I imagined the family togetherness it would bring. (Notice the extent of my energy level and willingness to do a project while still feeling somewhat crummy was to buy pre-made dough and to take over someone else's kitchen.)
Jessica got right into the project, but Jacob was cranky because I didn't make the spaghetti exactly how he wanted. He slowly forgave me though as he got into making his own name out of food. Michael was too busy eating his spaghetti so we made his name for him, and Nathan didn't eat much at all and kept declining even making just his own "N." He looked slightly sick as I tried to hand him a limp raw bread stick and he finally said, "Didn't you see what my planner said for Science today?!?!" Still in an allergy fog, and not remembering anything written on his weekly planner which I'd sleepily looked over Monday and signed that he had indeed shown it to me and that I had indeed looked it over, I didn't catch on right away, but then I realized - 7th grade, Science class ... dissecting frogs! - Oh, the poor boy, and I'd fed them SPAGHETTI. EEEWWW! Nathan had to leave the room.
Later, when all the letters were baked (and after I got a picture to prove later to the kids that, "I do so let you do projects ... sometimes") they each ate a few letters and we saved the rest for breakfast or snack at recess. Clean up was quick. Thank you Mom for letting us take over your counterspace!
* my chest of "diamonds" - when Michael and Nathan were about 3 and 2, they brought me handfuls of pretty shiny little whitish/clearish rocks they'd found in our desert yard and cleaned them up and told me, "We found theses diamonds for you, Mommy!" The boys were SO precious and sweet and excited, and I put my "diamonds" in a place of honor in our houses ever since. I found a small clear plastic treasure chest to put my "diamonds" in and it sits on a shelf in the family room. I also kept the heart shaped bread dough necklaces the boys each made for me in Kindergarten (until the pink dyed hearts turned greenish and began to crumble). I also have some very elegant fine jewelery Jessica and Jacob have made for me too.
* handmade Christmas ornaments - I'm a sucker for the cute things they make and bring home from school, church, Cub Scouts, Primary Girls, etc to hang on the tree. For one, I don't have to create a space for these things (they're ON the Christmas tree for one month and IN storage for the other 11 months). For another, I've discovered I have to act fast to even get to see any of these creations. They often go straight from the back pack to Grandma's tree. I guess I drilled into them too well the whole, "oh wow, you made another ______, who are you going to make feel special and give this one to?" thing.
* flat things, especially 8 1/2 x 11" or smaller. I've kept way too many of these things, intending to make scrap books someday, but I wasn't always real good about writing who the creator was and the date or their age on the project. And some have faded, some have stuck together, some have mildewed ...
Actually, I think I just paste that clenched teeth smile on when the kids bring home their completed oversized 3-D art and, no matter how creative and how adorable and how excited they are about it, I just wonder how long we are going to live with it and what is an appropriate length of time before discussing that "it needs to go live in storage now." When they start bringing supplies into the house for projects they are going to make, that's when I go ballistic and order ALL the styrofoam, twigs, string, huge stacks of old newspapers and egg cartons, handfuls of broken bits of who-knows-what, non-washable paint, FOOD COLORING, electrical wires and pieces, rocks, supersize cardboard boxes, 20,000,000,000 scraps of fabric, etc, etc, etc OUT OF THE HOUSE!!! "That's an outside project" is my mantra.
Actually, we're still "in progress" on Jessica's paper mache of the planet Mars (complete with a clay "face" and other surface details she's going to glue on and then paint the whole thing). It had a cave in on one side that needs to be fixed and is still awaiting a non-crummy feeling mommy to assist 3rd grade daughter in the surgery. (And I just barely snuck her last paper mache - a gigantic dinosaur egg - out of the house. WHY do I do this to myself?)
