Suddenly our days are crazy full. Crazy, crazy full. Full of scheduled events and not scheduled events and obligatory bike rides to the library and time spent in our yard with our neighbors and the part of the day in which every doll and stuffed animal is commandeered to play a part in a party or to go to the park or to otherwise fill out the scenes of Peter and Lucy's imagination.
In some ways, I've stopped trying to fill our days. I still plan activities, for sure, but the itchy fear I had of those crazy hours of 2 to 5 in the afternoon has dissipated. I'm still a little wary when I look at the clock and find it's only 2:25, but that's mostly because I'm wondering if I'll have the stamina to keep up with these three until dinnertime.
currently, these apples are blackish and growing fuzzy stuff
and even more awesome to investigate with a magnifying glass
Some days they request more preschool, and we do more preschool, and everyone's happy with learning games and drawing in our journals or recording just how moldy our apples are. (For the record: very moldy.) Often, when paper and crayons come out, so too do the scissors and markers, and it becomes a challenge to keep Thomas from the action.
Often, when the paper and crayons and scissors and markers come out, and I'm keeping Thomas entertained with his own activity, the creative play dissolves into making presents to give to others, and there's a charge to the kitchen, to gather foil and plastic bags to wrap up these presents.
Often, before or after the presents are made and wrapped, there's body markering. "Do you want a tattoo? We have cars and trucks and things that go and babydolls and baby animals." You can tell if the children are in a pleasant mood by their current ink offerings. Occasionally, Peter will offer Lucy a tattoo but warn her, "we have only cars and trucks, NO BABYDOLLS." Occasionally, Lucy will request a yellow beetle car. Sometimes, she'll cry. "Why no babydolls, Peter? I love them! Them my favorite!" Occasionally, I'll have to offer lessons about capitalism, and remind Lucy she's free to go to another tattoo parlor where the artist does offer babydolls. Peter, the rational actor, suddenly adds babydolls to his tattoo repertoire.
armed with new scissors, they found the contact paper,
cut a huuuuge piece, and started to work making an art project
I recently read something that really resonated with me, and that I've told almost everyone a dozen times, so that to read it hear must be eye-rolling. But still, I think of it daily. The author made the point that while we can induce children to learn to read at a young age, we're essentially teaching them through rote memorization and brute force.* Why spend so much time molding their young minds to perform tricks they're not ready for (but will almost surely pick up with little effort when they're just a bit older)? Why not, instead, spend that time teaching the children to be kind, and pleasant, and curious, and engaged, and self-directed?
It's hard to trust that they'll learn enough, especially in the face of peers who are reading and the Internet full of little children happily preschooling with their mamas in impressive set-ups. I force myself to remember these things: that play is the work of children, that we should give the children hours of uninterrupted play time every day, that what they're learning now: how to be patient, how to be kind, how to care for one another, how to put their mind to a singular purpose, how to live out their vision, how their voice has as much validity as anyone else's.
Even if that voice is offering tattoos for sale, tattoos for sale, fifty cents a tattoo!
*Natural inclinations for reading excepted. Some kids are born to read! Most aren't, including mine.
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