Good for a rainy day

When we did our annual Christmas get together with my side of the family last year, we went around the table and everyone told us what their favourite Christmas gift ever received was. I was totally surprised when my sister Katrina said the best gift she'd ever gotten was a box I put together for her when she was young that was full of craft stuff: plasticine, pipe cleaners, paints, etc. I had totally forgotten about giving her that (of course - terrible memory, remember?) but was really happy that she remembered and that it had been such a hit.

Fast forward to yesterday, which looked like this:That is to say, it was not the best day in the world to be outside, or to be travelling anywhere. I asked Liam in the morning what he wanted to do. I had a couple of errands to run, but was out of ideas for what to do afterwards. He replied that he wanted to do a craft.

One of the stops of our trip out was the dollar store, and while I'm not usually fond of their made-in-China junk that never lasts more than a week, it's a goldmine as far as kids' craft stuff is concerned. I have pads of construction paper and finger paints and scissors and paintbrushes - all kinds of goodies that have come from there. We hadn't brought home anything new in a while though, so I figured we were due. We picked up some new markers, some pipe cleaners, some pom poms, glue and a watercolour paint book. Once home, I cut a heart out of red construction paper and Liam probably spent a good three hours gluing (glueing? - can't think right now) pom poms onto it and colouring with the new markers. He was quite entranced by the new markers. His old set is 8 and the new one is 30, and he can't quite get over the fact that there are FOUR blue markers! And THREE orange ones!
When I was a kid, I was pretty into the crafty stuff, too. (Hard to believe, right? Ha!) Only we had to make do with toilet paper rolls and egg cartons and the styrofoam trays that our meat came packaged on (washed, of course). In other words: stuff that was otherwise destined for the garbage. I always wanted stuff like pom poms and pipe cleaners, though I can't remember ever asking my parents for them and being turned down. Maybe that's why I gave Katrina what I did - maybe I was really fulfilling a dream of my own. I would still have made caterpillars out of egg cartons, but then I could have given them a pipe cleaner antenna and some googly eyes to really finish the critters off right.

In my mind's eye, I already have the kids' playroom in our new house set up. It doesn't involve any new furniture or toys, and it's not very much bigger than the one they have now. But it has a corner that's entirely devoted to creative pursuits, including all the materials needed. There are egg cartons and toilet paper rolls, but there are also markers and paints, papers and glues, glitter and buttons, all readily accessible any time the kids want to get crafty. Of course, Liam was ready for something like that when he was ten months old. But given her track record, we'll be lucky if Mallory knows enough not to put the glue in her hair, the pipe cleaners in the toilet and the pom poms in her mouth by the time she's 3. In other words... it will be a while before this crafty dream of mine comes true.