I can’t tell you how ecstatic I was to read this article from The Columbus Dispatch. I no longer feel secretly horrible as a mom. Mothers are defined for their nurturing abilities and endless encouragement for their children, so when I throw away more than half of their ‘artwork’ it makes me feel like a schmuck. Apparently, obviously, I’m not the only one who does it.
Most of their artwork goes straight from the car to the trash. Anything that is obviously just scribbles, stencils, or black- my youngest who is 3 has a habit of mixing ALL the colors together making a nasty black/brown color that is just hideous. Then there are the projects they bring home that usually leave me speechless and internally thinking, ”What the…?” Two of the most obviously shocking were the ‘stress reliever’ and the ‘porcupine’.
The stress reliever consisted of a plastic baggy filled with hand soap and glitter! GLITTER! I loathe glitter. Zoey was so excited about it she was gushing when I picked her up and wanted to roll it around all the way home, while all I could do was pray that it didn’t bust or she didn’t open it because that would never come out of my car seats. In my opinion, that was the dumbest project to do with a child to send home. So after we all ‘oohed and aahhed’ over it we put it up, out of sight, when she went to bed. As soon as she was asleep my fiancé snuck in and got it and promptly threw it in the trash.
The porcupine still has me baffled. It was a painted Styrofoam ball with googley eyes attached and then about 30 toothpicks were stuffed into it. The stupid thing literally hurt to hold. Again she was enamored and Lexi wanted to hold it and play with it, all the while the toothpicks kept falling out. The first thing that came to mind was a time when I was about 5 I stepped on a toothpick and it went into the arch of my foot about half way. It was so painful I couldn’t walk for days, and watching my mom have to pull it out was rather traumatizing. So that went on top of their dresser for a few days until it was well forgotten about and then again it was tossed ever so carefully into the trash.
Because of the stacks and stacks they bring home they don’t miss them. My favorites are usually their favorites and even those pile up fast. For awhile we were letting them put them on the fridge until the fridge was always completely covered and pages were falling off, and it was just a mess. So that’s when the piles began to pile. They piled on bookshelves, they piled on dressers, and they piled in corners. So then I came up with a genius idea… give it all away! We just recently moved away from my family, so it was a great surprise to them to receive a huge, HUGE, envelope stuffed full of artwork to divide among my aunts and grandparents.
This has been the reigning for keeping it all under wraps so far and it has worked well. I keep three or four of the ones I fall in love with and the rest are gone. My life is a little more sane organized this way.
What do you do to keep your artwork monsters under wraps?
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