Getting messy

It' s been a busy week. I haven't quite stopped my decorating frenzy - I painted another room blue and Liv's a very light pink. The bathroom is next on my agenda, and then the bookshelf, Liv's desk, the windowsills, the kitchen cupboards.... well we'll see how much of this I actually accomplish. I've also been busy reorganizing cupboards, craft supplies, my sewing room, and the kids toys.

I noticed something this week that I found kind of exciting. On Monday I did a major overhaul of the craft cupboard and Liv's desk. In the process I had all of the art supplies strewn all over the kitchen- I mean not a inch of space was unoccupied on the floor or counters. When it could hardly get any messier, my kids went into this intensely creative mode and just started moving from one activity to the next with hardly any involvement from me. They were beading for a while and then they moved onto painting.


When painting had been explored to its fullest they moved onto platicine (hmm ... what is that stuff made of...do I want to know?) and from there they did stamping, and then coloring. It wasn't long before the big bottle of glue was out and wonderful things were being made.


Liv named this boat Diamond and had a great time blowing it around the bathtub with a fan. Derek came home at noon and just looked around in disbelief. We don't often get this messy. I was reminded of a homeschooling article I read a while back in which the author/mother talked about a method she used of inspiring her children to do interesting things which she called "strewing." She leaves all kinds of interesting things lying around and lets her kids get involved with them when and if they choose to. I can see from the fun my kids had this week how this could really inspire some interesting projects. Now if I only had a maid to clean up all the mess...