It's Not Always the End Result

My job as a mother is to teach my children everything I know, from basics like eating at the dinner table like civilized human beings and washing hands after using the bathroom to concepts like compassion and open-mindedness. But sometimes, in the most unexpected moments, I learn something from my children.

My girls attend a story-time/arts and crafts class on Thursdays and today the project was a snowman door hanger. The materials consisted of a foam door hanger and snowman, two googly eyes, glitter and buttons.  Lots of tiny, brightly-colored buttons.

Now, I am not a fan of telling kids how their art projects are "supposed" to look.  I give them the materials and let them go to town and so what if it looks different from the other kids' projects? Leila and Mia could have put that snowman upside-down with his googly eyes on his ass and I still would have said, "Wow! That's beautiful!"  But they didn't put the snowman upside-down, and they were having a ball making their little door hangers.

Mia hosted a glue-tasting party of one while Leila found 101 ways to use a button ("Mommy, look, clouds!", "Mommy, I'm making snow", etc.) But it was Mia who I found myself watching closely.  She had never actually sat down to do a project before (apparently she had more fun running around the craft room getting into mischief) so it was my first time being able to observe her. 

She looked so cute using the little paint brush to daintily add a touch of glue to the back of each tiny button before she meticulously placed it in its proper place.  I didn't even care that she had managed to get glue all over her shirt, face and hair as she used her fingers to make glue-designs on the snowman which would later be covered with glitter.  She was so proud of her little door hanger that she wouldn't even let me hold it for two seconds while I put her arm through the sleeve of her coat when it was time to go (i.e. she threw a fit until I handed it back to her).  And she walked with it all the way downstairs and to the car looking at it every few moments. I figured she must be so proud of herself, and I couldn't wait to show everyone the first project she did all on her own.

Mia held on to her pretty little snowman door hanger the whole ride home.  I was so proud of her (mainly because she actually sat still long enough to complete a project, and partly because she did such a good job)and I couldn't wait to show my husband when he got home from work. 

We finally reached the house and I pulled into the driveway. And as I looked back to where Mia was sitting I saw not a cute little button-covered door hanger in her hands, but three separate pieces of foam and a flurry of buttons. Turns out that during the ride home she was busy deconstructing her project just as happily as she had put it together and as she smiled at me, showing me what was left of her door hanger with googly eyes stuck to her shirt and dried glue stuck underneath her fingernails, I realized that sometimes it's not the finished project that matters, but the fun you had in the process.