Playful Processing & Integration

My daughter was present and engaged during my post surgery recovery in 2011. She worked healing magic on me as well as her dolls and lovies.

Colored tape, bandages, hugs and kisses…bedside with mama for those many days of recovery.

Today my daughter, aged 6 and headed for her own surgery, visited a most wonderful, child oriented surgery center where she was offered a child’s vantage point on what to expect. Once home, we spent the next several hours acting out the new information using whatever props and subjects we had close at hand.

Fairy Condos

Adding some pint size (maybe more half-gallon) magic to the property this spring with milk cartons, acrylics, Sharpies, stickers, varnish, sticks and glue gun…

Question Box

The older I get, the less able I am to multitask. Or, perhaps it’s not age but hours of sleep I miss each night (see previous posting :). Either way, after tending to the household tasks, little ones’ needs, and work prep, by the end of the day I can only focus on one thing at a time.

It’s possible that this is in fact the time of day when my daughter’s charming curiousity cuts loose and needs the likes of Google-for-preschoolers to sate her questions: “Why do princesses have so many dresses? How did the creator create the world? Where did I come from?” Truth be told, there have been times I’ve just had to ask her to stop talking so I can finish the thought in my own head.

Several days ago I vented to our beloved Auntie Beth who, without blinking, offered up the idea of a Question Box – a special place to hold the question until I have time to give her the attention she seeks.

Using cardboard scraps and a glue gun, I constructed a small box with a piggy bank type slot on the top and a flap on the bottom to access the question cards.

Elena decorated the outside of the box with tissue papers and aluminum foil. While the glue dried, she furiously worked on index cards drawing symbols and letters to record her thoughts. Thankfully, collecting her questions in the box will allow me a little time to prepare my responses. “Why did the creator make bananas? Was that before the dinosaurs?” and “How does Peter Pan fly?”. I’ve got some research to do.

Spontaneous Art Making – 101

Just before bed time last night, our daughter was inspired to make her 1 year old brother a pirate boat out of wood. In the basement wood shop she had her first lesson with her dad on using power tools. Furious that there was no time left to paint the boat before going to bed, we urged her to come up with a color plan. We drew a picture of a boat and encouraged her to plan out her colors. Off she went to bed and continued to draw, filling her notebook with countless drawings of pirate boats. Today, she had her first color mixing lesson and finished the boat. A most charming experience to watch.

Fairy Playground

Needed some magic today so we found a special place amongst the fading plants to create a play land.

Materials included objects from our last beach walk -shells, sea glass, stones, as well as items collected from around the yard – leaves, sticks, stones.

Making paths and trails…

Adding leaf boats…