A RealFamilies RealFun Blog

May 18 2009

She's the crafty one, not me

Category: At Home

Having fond memories of my mom teaching me to watercolor, as a new parent I looked forward to doing arts and crafts with my children. I envisioned hours spent quietly drawing, or wearing artist's smocks and painting at easels. I even created a crafts drawer in my dining room hutch, filled with coloring books, crayons, stickers, and markers. Then Nathan ruined my mommy art fantasy. To him, crafts are like chores, best to be avoided or done half-heartedly. He has as much patience coloring as he does making his bed.

Paul's had a much better time getting Nathan to do crafts. They've made elaborate homemade Valentine's Day cards for me and Nathan's teachers. Granted, he's starved for male attention and would do just about anything for his dad, including using glitter paint and gluing lace on to paper hearts.

Lucie's the family artist. Being a self-starter, she gets paper and crayons out on her own and raids the hutch drawer, making sure to restock her backpack with stickers and markers. I try to encourage her as much as possible, keeping the diaper bag filled with crayons and paper, so we can doodle together at all the meetings I drag her to.

Even so, my heart's not into doing crafts. Maybe it's my failed attempts with Nathan. More likely it's because I'm still burnt out from my four years of art school -- back in the '80s. There's a reason I'm a writer and not a graphic designer -- doing art is just not my thing any more, no matter how much I wish it were.

However, I'm not worried about Lucie suffering from crafts deprivation. My friend Julie puts together a craft project for the kids at our mom's club monthly meeting. She's the one who forces me to sit down with Lucie and patiently do art projects with her. Today, we created a flower out of a Popsicle stick, markers, glue, and foam cutouts. Then we stuck it in a plastic cup filled with dirt and flower seeds.

The dirt's been shaken and stirred so often, that I'll be shocked if the snapdragons bloom. Although I happily put in my monthly craft duty, I'm looking forward to when preschool begins and I can turn over the craft duties to Lucie's teachers. Boy, if my art teachers could see me now.

 

May 6 2009

Diorama dilemma

Category: At Home

The fateful note appeared in Nathan's Friday Folder. No it wasn't a "please contact me about your child." Instead, it was about one of those homework projects parents fear -- dioramas.

"Build a diorama of an animal in its habitat," the teacher wrote. "Please use a small shoe or tissue box. Also, write two sentences about the animal and its habitat. Your child will present this project to the class."

As a child, I remember struggling to make dioramas with the limited supplies I could scrounge around the house. I didn't get any help from my parents since they felt that I should do my homework myself. (What a unique concept!) Still, I felt since Nathan's in kindergarten, he needs a little assistance from me.

First, I got the dialog started. I gave him an animal book to look at, and we discussed various animals and habitats. Then I asked him what animal he wanted in his diorama. Nathan immediately suggested deer. This was not a surprise since my husband hunts, and we eat venison on a daily basis. So I did a web search, found some easy to color deer and woodland habitat cutouts, and printed them out.

I set Nathan up at the dining room table with the printouts and crayons, and told him to color while I finished putting laundry away. A few minutes later he announced that he was finished. When I went downstairs, I wasn't surprised to see a few scribbles and only a corner of each sheet colored in. Arts and crafts bore Nathan and he only has the patience for a few minutes of coloring at a time.

I told Nathan to color in all the trees and grass while I cut out construction paper for the background. Nathan declared he was done several more times. Then I'd point out things he hadn't colored, and nagged at him to color them in properly.

Finally, Nathan finished and it was time to cut and paste. He cut out the animals and trees, and put glue on the backs of the construction paper I had cut out. I placed in the sky and grass pieces, and then looked over at what he had done. Like any six-year-old, his cutting was jagged and rough. OK, no big deal, I told myself. Everyone else's in his class would be like that, too.

Then Perfectionist Mama reared her ugly head, and neatly trimmed everything he cut out. Honestly, I couldn't help myself. I wanted his diorama to look good and to have a nice 3-D effect. I told myself I was just cleaning it up a little. After pasting in the last pieces, Nathan and I were very happy with the results.

After Paul congratulated Nathan on the nice diorama his mother made for him (thanks, hun) I wondered if I crossed the line. Embarrassed that I had helped too much, I confessed to his teacher about assisting and pushing Nathan to complete the diorama. Amused at my dilemma, she assured me that what I did was fine. The point of the assignment was to introduce the children to the diorama concept and to have them work on larger projects, she said. She had assumed that parents would be working closely with their kids.

Assured that it does take a village to make a kindergarten diorama, I felt a lot better. However, I hope the next time Nathan gets a diorama assignment that he'll be old enough to work on it alone without Perfectionist Mama's interference...uh, help.

 

Apr 30 2009

The whammy

Category: At Home

In the past two weeks Lucie, Nathan and I have gone to seven doctor's appointments. I'm waiting for a call back to see if I have to make an eighth. It's a family record.

It's my fault because I was thinking that we have hardly been sick at all this winter. I temp the gods, and they throw my family the whammy. Nathan had strep throat on the first visit, an ear infection on the second, and sinusitis on the third. Lucie -- always a few days behind -- had viral conjunctivitis on her first visit, an ear infection on her second, and a continuing eye infection on her third. I just have a two-week old eye infection.

It's enough to make me believe in the Evil Eye.