A little background:
My husband is an engineer.
Art, drawing, and anything that uses the right side of the brain are either lost on him entirely, or he’s completely uninterested.
I wouldn’t say I’m an artist, but I have a few creative bones in my body.
In college, I loooooooooved my Philosophy classes (and had a minor in it!) while he thrived in Calculus 876 with math problems that had more letters than numbers and three double-sided pages later…the answer would be 2.
Fast forward:
Henry has no interest whatsoever in coloring, painting or any such thing…but every once in a while he’ll do it if it follows a few criteria:
1) It has to be fast. The craft cannot take longer than 10-15 minutes or he loses interest and wants to move onto building something or pretending to “fix the transmission” on his truck.
2) It has to be about science or technology or bugs or slime or airplanes or stuff I find completely boring and unpretty.
So when I saw Meg do this craft with her kids, I knew it would be right up our desolate craft alley.
So we set up shop in the playroom and got started.
I cut out 9 different sized circles for each of the two bigs and let Jill just scribble on some paper.
Except that Auntie Marcia who is in town visiting informed me that they decommissioned Pluto as a planet, so we actually only have 8 now.
I think I remember reading something about that, but it’s just WRONG people!!!
My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas.
Um, hello????!!! You remember this right?
Now what did my very educated mother serve us????!!!!
Lame.
Those scientists at NASA need to start considering these age old school rhymes!
Jill was in a foul mood and wanted nothing to do with our little activity.
So she decided to just eat the crayons instead.
Fine.
They’re non-toxic kid.
Knock yourself out.
Your threats mean nothing to me.
Meg used paints for her version, but I wasn’t ready to brave the disaster that would be paint with twin 2 year olds.
So we stuck with (washable) markers, crayons and colored pencils.
“Mom! Take a picture of my orange planet!!!”
Um, okay.
And off they went.
Queen Lucy of Crazy Town Who Rarely Sits Still was uncharacteristically quiet and focused.
Turns out my girl may be into the artsy stuff too.
Holla!
My people!
I got one!!!
I’m so stoked.
Seriously.
Girl likes herself some purple.
I really don’t think I’ve ever seen her so chill before.
I may have to do more crafty stuff more often.
You have no idea how happy this makes me.
Glitter! Popsicle sticks! Elmers glue!!!
Jill complained so we took her out of her seat.
But that wasn’t really enough for her.
Because you see, Jill is literally one of the sweetest, happiest, good natured babies you’ll ever meet.
Seriously.
But.
She is moody.
And when she is in a foul mood…the entire family pays for it.
Not even kidding.
Even Henry will say “Jill stop it! You are being ridiculous!”
It’s bad.
Auntie Marcia was a really good sport and helped Henry color in his planets.
A really good sport.
White crayons and colored pencils made stars on black paper.
Or shooting stars.
Whatever.
Sticking them all down…I thought “should I do it in the right order and be the mom that does it the CORRECT way????”
Nah.
Next week NASA will tell us that there’s only 6 planets and they’re all in a different order anyway.
Do your kids like crafts? Any other ideas for something that’ll match Henry’s criteria?
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My son is quite crafty, but like your son, would rather be at his Craftsman tool bench or helping his Daddy under the Jeep. He makes cards with me though, picking up scraps from the floor that I drop. Everything he finds on the floor…ribbons…buttons…paper scraps, no matter how small or large…and he says “can you glue this up for me?” Love it. My girls are little scrapbookers/cardmakers and I love it so very much :) Enjoy this time with them, it goes by so very fast (and you end up with a Justin Bieber fanatic who just wants to watch tv and play video games, like my 11 year old. Ugh.)
My 3 year old son is quite crafty, but like your son, would rather be at his Craftsman tool bench or helping his Daddy under the Jeep. He makes cards with me though, picking up scraps from the floor that I drop. Everything he finds on the floor…ribbons…buttons…paper scraps, no matter how small or large…and he says “can you glue this up for me?” Love it. My girls are little scrapbookers/cardmakers and I love it so very much :) Enjoy this time with them, it goes by so very fast (and you end up with a Justin Bieber fanatic who just wants to watch tv and play video games, like my 11 year old. Ugh.)
I think I’ve just found my son’s twin brother from another mother. My 4 year old is exactly the same way. He could care less about drawing, coloring, crafts, or anything of the nature. Anytime I try to get him to do it, he only lasts 5 to 10 minutes, then he’s just bored. But give him a pretend screwdriver, hammer, or wrench, he’s off trying to fix something. And everything has an engine, even a table.
So fun!
I’m also married to an engineer, and so far my kiddos seem to be just like daddy…lately we’ve been working on doing a few more crafty things. It’s slow, they aren’t into rainbows :( Anyway, my brother was like this too, and my mom had him draw pipes. A stack of scrap papers with pipes drawn all over and he was allowed to hang them up on the wall outside of the bathroom. He would rearrange them and add more all the time. I’m just remembering this, funny what will spark a memory, isn’t it?
yep. i get all kinds of confused when they mess with planets!
your craft time looks like a par-tay. goodness, your kiddos are beautiful.
Xo
Fun! I had hoped one of my two kids would be crafty like me but I guess I’ll find out when I get to Heaven. (I’m secretly hoping that there’s a treasure chest full of macaroni art and crayon masterpieces waiting for me… for all those birthdays and mother’s days and holidays that go by between my kids arriving in Heaven and my own arrival.)
My favorite tv show is Psych and one of the main characters’ best lines is “You heard about Pluto? That’s messed up, right?” My husband and I use that one quite frequently. Anyway, have you seen the site http://belladia.typepad.com/crafty_crow/? It has tons of craft ideas and you can even search by age range to get simple crafts. I love the site.
lol about your hubs+calculus story… i’m on the same planet as he is with the whole math thing lacking all the creative juices in my body so i totally got the joke lol
and that is one sweet craft idea!
I learned “Men Very Early Made Jelly Sandwiches Using New Peanut butter”…New what??? That will be the mystery as I teach the solar system…ugh