Projects

I'm not a project person, but I always admire those who are. I love to read books about projects, or activities, for kids, but I can never seem to actually set them up and get the kids involved. Its too much of a hassle and I suspect that the kids might not be all that interested if its not something they've chosen to do.

So far, my experience seems to support my stance of not doing projects. The few times I've been around people who set up projects, it always seems to me that I'm either pushing the kids to finish them because we're running out of time, or I'm the one finishing them. For instance, my mom thought it would be great fun to do a model solar system (from a purchased kit). I think the kids each painted a couple of planets and were on to something else while my mom and I finished painting the plants. Actually, it was pretty fun bonding with my mom over our pathetic color concoctions -- but the activity was of limited use with the kids.

This is one reason why I love Sunday school and library programs -- they have simple little crafts all set to go. For some reason, I cannot bring myself to do it myself -- I have in the past, especially when we did a playgroup where the host provided an activity. However, this quickly fell by the wayside as we moms decided that we really needed time to chat with each other and the kids play just fine on their own (and didn't necessarily get anything from the activity anyway).

The one area where I can, sometimes, do a 'project' with my kids is baking. Though I don't like to have fattening sweets in the house for me, or a meal alternative for my kids (especially my oldest who seems to subsist on air, but will gladly scarf down cookies if we have them). We recently made Rebecca's muffins. Yum.

What I really need to get in gear with is sewing -- Suzanne needs help with that and could probably use some direction from me. I'll put it on my 'to do' list.