Taking the time

How often I allow myself to be too busy to take the small amount of time required to help my children on some creative project they want to do. Three things seem to work against me here:

1) I imagine that it will require more work on my part then it actually will and

2) I am concerned about the 'mess' that will be made (which is often, though not always, larger in my imagination as well)

3) I project my perfectionism on my children and want it to turn out 'just right' - when it's not even my project! How ridiculous is that!

Yet, when I finally let go and just take the time required to get them set-up to do their projects (more often with a 'fine, you can do it now' attitude than an 'Ok, great, let's get this project going' attitude, I hate to admit) I am always so amazed and blessed by my childrens creations, whatever they may be. They do not often turn out 'perfect' and there may be a mess but it is always so worth it to see what they do. Why can I not learn this lesson and just take the time to allow these things to happen more often?

As an example, this fall I taught some scrapbooking classes for ladies in my homeschool co-op and my neighborhood. One of the projects we did at the last class was a key chain album and my daughter really wanted to make one. I helped her get started in the little bit of free time I had at the class but since then I have continued to put her off when she wanted to work on it. Finally, I let her finish it this last week and it turned out amazing - and I did not have to do much to help, just show her what to do and help with the more difficult task of sanding the edges of the tags. Lesson learned...again.


Here is Miriam with her beautiful creation.


Inking the edges, a very important (and fun) step. She inked each of the four sides of this tag with a different color!

Miriam tied most of the ribbons onto the key ring herself, I just had to show her how with the first two. And, of course, she picked them all out herself.

Just so unbelievably adorable!