Projects, Pom Poms and Puppets

On one of my recent trips to the craft store, I made a few purchases with my little darlings in mind. I thought to myself that if I can keep those cute little fingers preoccupied with their favorite thing in the whole wide world which is white, sticky and begins with the letter 'g', that I might once again gain an ounce of sanity to my world.

On a particular evening when the little lambs were acting a bit less than soft and furry, I pulled out the project kits to change their focus from bringing each other down to the ground in a tackle like maneuver to honing in that energy to make spectacular foamy animal stick puppets. My planned worked for a brief moment, I was flabbergasted. Here were two brothers working together with the single bottle of glue and believe or not...two different stick animals. The words, "I want that one" didn't even come to pass. Oh, I thought to myself, I have to add this one to my thankful notebook.

You may ask, "what is a thankful notebook"? I recently got this idea to help myself and my children think of things daily that we are thankful for instead of all this grumbling. My plan was to share our notebooks with each other at the end of the week. Well, to be honest, that only lasted for about a week. I still think it was a good idea and every now and then I think to myself...Oh, I need to add that to my thankful notebook...if only I could find it.

Grace also received a project kit called the 'think box'. It's all about solar power. You can make fun things with prisms and pom poms....(what do pom pom's have to do with solar power?) That is a question I haven't figured out yet except perhaps to appeal to the 'girl power'. She wanted to work on that along with the boys and their projects. So it ended up that all of us were around the table working on projects. As we progressed deeper in the projects, I found myself trying to keep the stinkin' foam puppets together because those little angels were so impatient they couldn't wait a bit to let the glue dry. And then they would cry because it fell apart.

Then Grace needed my attention for the stinkin' pom pom puppy who wouldn't stay together. I glued once again the head back on and then the leg fell off. While I was fixing the leg, the nose fell off. While I was fixing the nose the ear fell off....and so on and so on. As she reached for the adorable little puppy that I so lovingly put temporarily together. I realized that my tone had turned from we are a happy project loving family to back away from the puppy, don't touch the stick puppets, it's time for bed kind of mama. My ounce of sanity was lost. I was wondering why do things I plan for the good always seem to take a turn down regret highway? I began to ask myself, who is the person that comes up with these bright ideas. I need to write him a letter of reality. Maybe send him a video tape so he can actually see it in action. Some of us need visuals. My thankfulness had left the building.

As I tucked each one in bed, I realized that perhaps I need to not care so much if the puppy loses a leg, ear, or head or who really cares if the nose is lopsided on the elephant stick puppet. What really matters is the time that I spend with them. I suppose they don't care so much about the puppets or the puppies but what they will remember is me yelling at them to step away from the table when all they want is my attention and to have fun. So now I must add that I am thankful for the love my kids give me inspite of my stinkin' attitude, the endless forgiveness they always have for me, and most of all......that God can use those stinkin' projects to develop the character traits in me inspite of myself.

That in my opinion, is my reality.