Thursday, May 27, 2010

Lately, Lucy has had her own ideas about what she wants to do.

This is not terribly shocking, since she is three, and comes from a long line of stubborn do-it-yourselfers. I used to dread group projects in school because, really, who wants to work with someone else? It's more effort to get everyone to do it your way.

However, when you are the one being managed this way, it is hard. Especially when the manager is three and wants to play pretend games for hours at a time. Each pretend game is announced with a double word. As in, "I want to play, "Doctor, Doctor," where you are the patient and I am the doctor." Or, "I want to play, "Family, Family," where you are the mommy and I am the daddy." Or, "I want to play, "Store, Store." or "Restaurant, Restaurant." or "Beach, Beach.""

Enough. Enough.

Of course, perhaps my annoyance partially stems from, ahem, liking to be the one in control myself.

However, yesterday, Lucy wanted to do a craft. Her craft. "Momma, I want to color on paper, and then paint it, and then cut it, and then use glue, and put glitter on it."

I nodded. This sounded very multi-media. I got out the supplies.

What was great (I know, all you unschoolers, you are rolling your eyes) was that she came up with the idea, and she discovered the effects it produced: the wax resist, the layering, the different ways paints soaked into different kinds of paper. I to to discover them with her.

As opposed to me managing the discovery, the process, the magic.

Ah, to be patient enough to allow her space to figure things out on her own.

1 comment:

postmommy said...

It's so hard, isn't it? I was the same way in school, always hated group projects, too.

My son is also three and he is also very stubborn. He actually gets angry when you do something outside of his idea of what is "right," even if you had no idea it was a rule. Like today, I used a green crayon to color a tree. He gritted his little teeth and said, "Mommy! I wanted you to color the CAR!"

Ok. Sorry, boss. Lemme know what I'm allowed to do next :p

But it is all worth it when you get to enjoy moments like this, where something simple but amazing happens. I almost cried tears of joy the other day when my son figured out how to fold the washcloths all by himself (lol...the things that are exciting to me now are a little pathetic).