Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Practical advice for unsentimental parents

Preschoolers generate a lot of art projects. Elisabeth comes home every day with at least one, if not two or three projects. They come in three categories: things glued onto construction paper (where things equals cutout shapes, glitter, or foam pieces), some kind of paint on some kind of paper (finger on construction, water on white, etc), or the occasional three dimensional structure inevitably consisting of a toilet paper tube. Elisabeth is always so proud to show me her art projects, she usually insists upon stopping in the middle of the hallway to dig them out and display them to all of the other waiting parets. Given my extreme dislike of clogging the hallway, this drives me a little bonkers.

So I manage to get Elisabeth, her bag, Charlotte, and the 1-3 art projects (that have by this point been scattered down the hallway) to the larger space by the door where I proceed to "oooooooh" and "aaaaawe" over them. My mother told me never to ask what a painting is because it will offend the kid who very clearly sees a family portrait amongst the modernistic Jackson Pollock-esque drawing. So, instead, I ask her to tell me about it. She typically says something like this: "its paint, mommy. I used a brush. I wanted red, but Nicole had the red and Nicole doesn't share so its orange." I'm very relieved to find out that Elisabeth has my artistic sense and skills.

But what do you do with these art projects? At 1-3/day, that is about 8-24 projects a month. Throwing them away, at least while she is conscious of their existence, seems rather cold hearted even to me. I thought about mailing them in batches to her various grandparents, but I've figured out that she's too smart for that and will proceed to ask the grandparents exactly where these masterpieces were hanging. It has been a constant battle since September, with piles of art projects cluttering our otherwise pristine countertops (hey, stop laughing). Oh as an aside, the inventer of glitter and confetti-like things clearly did not have children, and should be taken out and immediately relieved of his duty to breathe. Anyway - we have discovered the solution to the overwhelming mountain of preschool art!

Scissors. Santa gave Elisabeth scissors for Christmas. She's not allowed to cut anything without asking. One day she asked if she could cut her art project from school that day. Hesitantly (I now wonder why I even hesitated), I said yes. Brilliant! Now, instead of trying to cut important letters from the Virginia Board of Bar Examiners, she goes to town on her art projects. Once they're cut into miniscule pieces, I don't feel bad at all about sweeping them into the trash. This morning, she took care of yesterday's birthday hat, her birthday baloon (construction paper), and her finger painting. I'm considering renting her out as a paper shredder, any takers?

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