Being Just Hands-On Enough
Two afternoons ago, my son and I decided to tackle his first-ever preschool homework assignment--he had been asked to make a Valentine box for their school party. I had simply by chance bought a new pair of shoes over the weekend whose box had a super-cool flip-top lid, and I was excited imagining the handy ease with which he would access his cards and goodies during the fete. I had a vision for this box.
As is nearly always the case, I "just needed to finish one more thing" before I was ready for arts-and-crafts time. But I encouraged my little partner to go ahead and get out the supplies that he thought we'd need.
"One more thing" turned into two or three, so it was probably five minutes later when I came on the box-decorating scene to find that it was well underway. With all the precision a four-year-old can muster, my son was holding a sheet of white paper against one of the sides of the box and using the flat surface of the box top as a cutting guide as he snipped carefully for an accurate fit. He had already cut two or three similar panels and Scotch-taped them to the box--disabling the nifty functionality of the flip-top lid.
With enthusiasm, I suggested that I get a knife and slice through the paper to free up the lid once again. But making that slice would have disfigured two hearts that he'd drawn in magenta Crayola marker, and he was clearly not cool with that. I put the knife down and sat on my hands as he kept taping and taping, my silent and ridiculous protests ricocheting around in my own head.
He (nearly) completely covered the box's surface with jagged white rectangles. I blushed at my neuroticism in being bothered by the exposed patches of cornflower blue that hadn't been papered over. Whose Valentine box was this, anyway? What kind of Valentine-y expression of love is it to judge the quality of a preschooler's expression of love? He was drawing rounded bubble-hearts with abandon and taping gleefully, and THAT'S what was beautiful.
In the end, when I'd encouraged him to try his glitter glue pens to jazz things up, he drew two blobby, unrecognizable images side by side and told me they were our faces. And then he said, "Let's write the names of the people who made the box on the side," scrawling his name and mine--MOM--in all caps.
And I guess I had helped him make his box--mostly by not un-making it.
As is nearly always the case, I "just needed to finish one more thing" before I was ready for arts-and-crafts time. But I encouraged my little partner to go ahead and get out the supplies that he thought we'd need.
"One more thing" turned into two or three, so it was probably five minutes later when I came on the box-decorating scene to find that it was well underway. With all the precision a four-year-old can muster, my son was holding a sheet of white paper against one of the sides of the box and using the flat surface of the box top as a cutting guide as he snipped carefully for an accurate fit. He had already cut two or three similar panels and Scotch-taped them to the box--disabling the nifty functionality of the flip-top lid.
With enthusiasm, I suggested that I get a knife and slice through the paper to free up the lid once again. But making that slice would have disfigured two hearts that he'd drawn in magenta Crayola marker, and he was clearly not cool with that. I put the knife down and sat on my hands as he kept taping and taping, my silent and ridiculous protests ricocheting around in my own head.
He (nearly) completely covered the box's surface with jagged white rectangles. I blushed at my neuroticism in being bothered by the exposed patches of cornflower blue that hadn't been papered over. Whose Valentine box was this, anyway? What kind of Valentine-y expression of love is it to judge the quality of a preschooler's expression of love? He was drawing rounded bubble-hearts with abandon and taping gleefully, and THAT'S what was beautiful.
In the end, when I'd encouraged him to try his glitter glue pens to jazz things up, he drew two blobby, unrecognizable images side by side and told me they were our faces. And then he said, "Let's write the names of the people who made the box on the side," scrawling his name and mine--MOM--in all caps.
And I guess I had helped him make his box--mostly by not un-making it.
posted by Lisa Strandberg at 9:11 PM
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