Last week, in an act of surrender to this never-ending winter, I bought my kids pocket knives and a book on whittling.
We’ve done all the coloring/ stickers/ painting/ crafting/ wrestling/ cooking/ legos/ board games possible and before we all sink into a coma of unlimited Netflix, I rallied one last crazy idea.
I told a few of my friends of my purchase and they broke into hysterical laughter and said, “We can’t wait to see those pictures on your blog!”
So, Jamie, Amy and Angela, here they are. I will spare you the bloody ones, but I will say that I put Band-aids on the grocery list because we went through quite a few. Ahem.
But it gave us an hour of time together, with no bickering. The kids talked about what they wanted to make, about going outside to look for twigs, their hands were clean from all that handling of soap and I declared, “This is good.” I’m pretty sure it’s not our golden ticket to bliss until Spring decides to show up, but for now, I’ll take it.
*Yes, they were supervised the whole time. Yes, I believe in letting my kids do dangerous things, even if it means they may get hurt. And no, Eliza didn’t get to try it. She was taking a nap and the knives are safely out of her reach.
Good for you Mom! We have worked so hard to make everything "safe" in our children's lives, and as a result, our kids miss great opportunities to learn! Good parenting is not removing all risk, it is teaching children how to deal with the risks and challenges that will inevitably occur in their lives. We miss you all – come see us sometime and we will do some risky stuff like tree climbing, kayaking, sailing…! Tom
I remember doing this as a child! I don't think my parents necessarily knew about it but we had a secret hiding place in a bush and we used to take soap and knives there to work on creations like this. What fun! And come to think of it — my parents probably DID know all along! 🙂