He's Crafty....not

I'm trying to convince Bear to colour more. I realized that he never really colours, or draws. I can't say he likes it. Sometimes he'll paint. Not often.

We go to a Toddler Art programme before playgroup every Wednesday. Sometimes I can get him to glue stuff, but most of the time he just wants to play. He's probably inherited his lack of interest in art from me.

I've always hated art. I think it came from Grade 1. I remember this stupid woven apple that we had to make. Teacher gave us apples she had cut from red construction paper. We were to take regular white office paper and cut it into strips. Then we had to make horizontal slits in the apple. THEN we had to weave the white paper through the horizontal slits. Easy right? WRONG!

There were three or four of us who couldn't do it. We tried and tried. I remember feeling anxious and stupid and wanting to cry, and then the time was up. Art was over. It was on to gym. On to gym for those who finished their apples. Lights off in a dark room to finish the apples for those of us who didn't get how to weave that paper in and out. We sat on the floor next to the classroom door for light. I don't get why Teacher thought that turning out the lights and leaving 6 year olds alone and unsupervised to finish the project alone was a good idea. We nabbed an older kid in the hallway who knew how to make the apples. We convinced him to "help". I don't know who he was but I am so thankful that he finished that apple for me.

I have a friend who's children like crafts. They will sit and work on their crafts for hours. They will draw or paint or glue or string beads. This friend can't believe that my son doesn't like crafts. She asked what was wrong with him. Like he was defective for not liking crafts. I wanted to tell her that NOTHING was wrong, thank you very much. That my Le Leche League leader thought that kids who sat in silence diligently working on their task for hours on end were creepy. I did point out that focusing on something for about 10 minutes was normal for his age and that he was right on target with that. Who cares if he doesn't like to draw? He likes to make up stories. He likes his playmobil. He likes to tumble and jump.

Squirrel is a scribbler already. He likes to leaf through the colouring books and scribble on random pages. He loves cars. Give him a couple of cars and he'll play for 20 minutes, driving them along the baseboard, up the walls and under the table. He has even started to make the sound effects, which is really cute. He knows which ones make noise and when they don't he brings them to me and says uh-oh. I know that when he discovers that playdoh is not food and is fun to squish that he will like playdoh more than Bear does.

I love that all kids are different. And my Le Leche leader WAS right.... if all kids were quiet and diligent and focused on a task for hours on end, it would be creepy. I sort of picture a group of girls with braided black hair, pale heads bent over their paper, vacant eyes watching their hands draw red circles, round and round and round and round and round.....