One day at a time

Day 60: Look what I made

It was a day of creativity at our house.

I like those days, especially if I’ve got a ton of work to do (I did), because the kids – specifically the five-year-old – occupy themselves for good blocks of time.

Hannah did some worksheets for school and then opted for painting, which is always a good time-eater, because once she gets started hundreds of ideas flood her little imagination and flow out of the paintbrush one page at a time until we’ve got a collection of at least six one-of-a-kind pieces of artwork.

But today she wasn’t in that mood. She made a handprint painting and while that was drying she realized Christian was using cookie-cutters in the kitchen – wait, what?

“I want to help!”

So the two of them cut out lemon-flavoured stars and ducks for a while, and when those were baking Hannah disappeared to watch her Alpha Blocks videos until lunch.

She diligently wrote in her journal afterwards, and even mopped the floor (this was a good day), then realized her painting had dried.

The next thing I knew, there was a giant pink handprint in my face.

“Look Mom, look what I made!” Jumping up and down. Grinning from ear to ear. Rubbing it against my nose for good measure, to make sure I was seeing her work. “It’s for you!”

After asking her to kindly remove the paper from my face, I expressed my appreciation for her use of colour and told her she needed to sign it for me. Wide eyes: “I don’t know how to do that.”

“Just write your name.”

“Oh. I know how to do that.”

These little interruptions peppered my entire day – the busiest day of the week for me, as I tried to tie up all the loose ends, do interviews and write four stories to wrap up the work week ahead of my Friday off and an unheard of four-day weekend.

We don’t tend to live for the weekend around here as much as we once did, but I’m sure looking forward to this one.

We intend to soak up the minutes of all four days with the sunshine our forecast has in store, and exciting things like getting new tires and planting flowers.

There will probably be lots of outdoor time, bike rides, maybe a few grown-up beverages on the patio, fun snacks and tons of real family time and relaxation.

At least that’s the very loosely-formed plan at this stage. When you’ve got five kids things can change on a dime.                                                                                                                     

Krista Conrad, OkotoksToday.ca

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