>Not So Crafty

“Okay, Punky, which shirt do you want for your scarecrow?”

Together, we looked over our options laid out on the art studio table as part of the Tuesdays for Tots program at the botanical gardens. There were shirt shapes cut from cute polka dots, pretty pastel plaids and a lovely little pink swirly pattern. And then there was an ugly paisley that looked like it had come straight from a sofa in Archie Bunker’s house.

“That one,” she said decisively. You guessed it. She picked the paisley.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Are you really, really sure?”

“Yes, that one,” Punky said impatiently. I sighed and helped her glue the shirt to the cardboard scarecrow form. Next, we picked out a pair of pants. Once again, she bypassed the pretty pinks and pale blues in favor of an orange, nubby tweed. Yick. Resignedly, I glued it on.

“Now choose some beads for his eyes, nose and mouth,” I said, handing her a small bowl of beads on the table. She chose a few and attempted to glue them onto the scarecrow’s head, forming a barely discernible face. I tsked quietly to myself and waited until she was distracted to quickly center the nose and eyes and form the mouth into a smile before the glue dried. I noticed my friend looking at me from across the table.

“Well, if we have to put this up in our house somewhere, it might as well look good,” I said. We laughed. I cut some raffia and glued it inside the scarecrow’s arms and legs as Punky, who had abandoned the project, waited impatiently at my side.

“Come on, Mommy!” she shouted. “Let’s leave this place!”

“Just hold on,” I said bemusedly, cutting the paper at the end of the scarecrow’s stick arms into cute little mitten hands.

I like to tell people that Punky and I are obsessed with crafting now, but really, I’m the one who’s obsessed. Punky enjoys choosing a project, selecting materials, and getting the whole thing underway, but by the end, she’s generally singing to herself and doing a dance at my feet while I happily glue on buttons and cut up construction paper and twist fuzzy pipe cleaners. A three-year-old can’t do all that much anyway, I reason to myself as I put the finishing touches on a paper bag puppet, and she sure does like to play with whatever “we’ve” created.

Already, though, I can tell I’m turning into one of those parents, the ones I’ve mocked for years at my girls’ elementary and junior high parents’ nights. I don’t know these parents by their faces; I know them by their work. Hubs and I will roam the halls, admiring the book reports and science projects that decorate the walls. Suddenly, amidst the slightly askew hand-lettered posterboards and the messily glued-on pictures, we see it- a poster with perfectly-placed letter stickers, typewritten explanations cut and pasted neatly below impressively bordered pictures, and a sprinkling of glitter to give the whole thing flair.

“Who’s the mom responsible for this one?” I’ll snicker. We’ll laugh, imagining the late night some freakishly obsessive mother spent putting together her child’s project on the four seasons.

Now though? I’m not laughing. If I don’t lay off, that mother soon will be…. me.

This post originally appeared on Parents.com.