I’m working on my entry for the Holiday Softie Awards.  Well really I’m sitting on the couch whining to no one imparticular about being sick and trying to motivate myself to actually work on my entry for the Holiday Softie Awards.   So far it’s working pretty well, but there are a few more components and I’m a little nervous about tackling those.  I don’t want to give it away before it’s done, but you could probably figure it out.  Any guesses?

My daughter and I did a little craft project, but seeing as we are all sick it really wasn’t much of a project.  I taped a a big sheet of paper to a table (it would probably have worked better on the floor, but I didn’t want her little brother messing with it) and we colored little scenes for her toys:  a table she could draw food on, a road for all the cars, she drew a lake and I put in a diving board and some sea creatures, and a playground.  We color all the time, but I don’t usually think of getting her other toys “involved.”  She could add new things when she thought of them and her little people ate and swam and drove all around.  It made for a nice morning of rainy day play.

Inspired by good + happy day’s week of organized activities, I declared Monday “making day.” I’m afraid it stops there though–I just don’t have the follow through for everyday to have a planned activity. But I always wanted to be that mom that lets her kids go crazy with art, screw the mess. But then I became a mom. And it involves a lot of mess: dirty dishes, dirty laundry, dirty diapers, dirty hands, dirty faces. So much of everyday is cleaning babies and things that it’s hard to start something that you know will make yet another mess. My daughter just turned 2 and she needs some more art making in her life and I need to say screw the mess a little more. So this morning we made potato prints: she watched as I cut the shapes out of the potatoes (“star! star!”), dipped them in the paints, and kind of got the hang of stamping, but somehow painting the potatoes was more fun, as was painting her arm and her hands and her belly, but really it wasn’t more than soap and water couldn’t handle. And there you go. Art.

If you’d like to join in Making Mondays (or any day really) do! Comment and tell me what you and your littles make together. Or make a date for next Monday.