Sunday, April 19, 2020
I feel like April is flying by. I am sure part of that fast time sensation.is a result of me still completing some of my March journal entries. By the end of today, I should be able to focus my brain on April. I have one journal entry that only needs two paragraphs and one journal entry that is slightly more than halfway completed. Once I complete those two journal entries, I can let go of my exceptionally long March and welcome my very short April. It will be cathartic when I get to simply read and add 20 days in a row to my master journal file. I can quit feeling like a slacker because I cannot complete the simple task of writing one page each day.
I started today with a pretty good laugh. I watch Sunday Morning on CBS before I get out of bed on Sundays and this week the fifth clip in a series featuring Jim Gaffigan staying at home in New York City with his wife and five children was aired. This morning the clip was about his messy, destructive children. It made me laugh even though the “mess” was obviously staged. In my house, my seven-year-old’s, Mika, mess is so much more than a single juice box on an otherwise empty table (I do not even have an empty table in my house). I believed the destroyed chair was real, and I am surprised, with five children, there is only one.
Yesterday, Mika discovered she likes shaving crayons into nothingness. How did Mika make this amazing discovery, you may wonder. Let me enlighten you. It was quite cold last week on Easter, so the Easter Bunny did not leave any eggs in the yard for hunting. I have a plastic baggie with six or seven plastic eggs that were liberated when Mika and I purged her toys. Yesterday, Mika decided she wanted to do an egg hunt.
Mika looked around the house for goodies to place inside the eggs and proceeded to hide the eggs around my lower level great room. Mika could teach a master class in egg hiding. I had insisted she stack up the foam letters she had been playing with earlier in the day, and she stuck an egg in the middle of the pile. Next Mika grabbed a glove and placed an egg in it. Mika decided the egg was too obviously visible in the glove, so she started stuffing the glove with crayons for fingers. Do you see where this is going?
Mika took the wrapper off a crayon, and when I asked her why she told me she needed to shave it a little bit to fit inside the glove. Mika paused from egg hiding to shave the crayon and then finished hiding her eggs so she could have her sister, Megan, hunt for them when Megan came back to our house last evening. I thought the crayon shaving was finished. I was wrong.
When I rolled to let the dogs out of the back door shortly before it was time for Mika to quit using the computer, I saw another pile of crayon shavings beside the keyboard. Mika looked at me and said, ”What? It is fun.” The only mission more fun than making a mess or destroying an object to a child is one that involves making a mess while destroying an object. Shaving crayons was obviously an instant hint.
Mika did have Megan do an egg hunt after Megan put me in bed last night. I forgot to ask Megan how it went this morning before she left. I am sure Mika had to give Megan several hints. Mika did such a good job of hiding the eggs, I wonder if she remembered where all of them were hidden. We might be cleaning someday and find an egg in an odd place. I was pleasantly surprised to find all the crayons still in a large pile on the floor and not shaved into piles across the room. I would have preferred the crayons be inside their bag and on the shelf, but only other people’s kids put away objects when they are finished with them.
My piece of advice to you is to love the mess. Mika has a much smaller mess since we tossed or donated two-thirds of her toys earlier this year, and eventually I will get clutter clearing volunteers at my house again. Perhaps a year or two from now, I can stage my messes too.
Until next time,
Susanne
Please check out my GoFundMe page.
I feel like April is flying by. I am sure part of that fast time sensation.is a result of me still completing some of my March journal entries. By the end of today, I should be able to focus my brain on April. I have one journal entry that only needs two paragraphs and one journal entry that is slightly more than halfway completed. Once I complete those two journal entries, I can let go of my exceptionally long March and welcome my very short April. It will be cathartic when I get to simply read and add 20 days in a row to my master journal file. I can quit feeling like a slacker because I cannot complete the simple task of writing one page each day.
I started today with a pretty good laugh. I watch Sunday Morning on CBS before I get out of bed on Sundays and this week the fifth clip in a series featuring Jim Gaffigan staying at home in New York City with his wife and five children was aired. This morning the clip was about his messy, destructive children. It made me laugh even though the “mess” was obviously staged. In my house, my seven-year-old’s, Mika, mess is so much more than a single juice box on an otherwise empty table (I do not even have an empty table in my house). I believed the destroyed chair was real, and I am surprised, with five children, there is only one.
Yesterday, Mika discovered she likes shaving crayons into nothingness. How did Mika make this amazing discovery, you may wonder. Let me enlighten you. It was quite cold last week on Easter, so the Easter Bunny did not leave any eggs in the yard for hunting. I have a plastic baggie with six or seven plastic eggs that were liberated when Mika and I purged her toys. Yesterday, Mika decided she wanted to do an egg hunt.
Mika looked around the house for goodies to place inside the eggs and proceeded to hide the eggs around my lower level great room. Mika could teach a master class in egg hiding. I had insisted she stack up the foam letters she had been playing with earlier in the day, and she stuck an egg in the middle of the pile. Next Mika grabbed a glove and placed an egg in it. Mika decided the egg was too obviously visible in the glove, so she started stuffing the glove with crayons for fingers. Do you see where this is going?
Mika took the wrapper off a crayon, and when I asked her why she told me she needed to shave it a little bit to fit inside the glove. Mika paused from egg hiding to shave the crayon and then finished hiding her eggs so she could have her sister, Megan, hunt for them when Megan came back to our house last evening. I thought the crayon shaving was finished. I was wrong.
When I rolled to let the dogs out of the back door shortly before it was time for Mika to quit using the computer, I saw another pile of crayon shavings beside the keyboard. Mika looked at me and said, ”What? It is fun.” The only mission more fun than making a mess or destroying an object to a child is one that involves making a mess while destroying an object. Shaving crayons was obviously an instant hint.
Mika did have Megan do an egg hunt after Megan put me in bed last night. I forgot to ask Megan how it went this morning before she left. I am sure Mika had to give Megan several hints. Mika did such a good job of hiding the eggs, I wonder if she remembered where all of them were hidden. We might be cleaning someday and find an egg in an odd place. I was pleasantly surprised to find all the crayons still in a large pile on the floor and not shaved into piles across the room. I would have preferred the crayons be inside their bag and on the shelf, but only other people’s kids put away objects when they are finished with them.
My piece of advice to you is to love the mess. Mika has a much smaller mess since we tossed or donated two-thirds of her toys earlier this year, and eventually I will get clutter clearing volunteers at my house again. Perhaps a year or two from now, I can stage my messes too.
Until next time,
Susanne
Please check out my GoFundMe page.