"Mommy? Do we have a book for my buh-lection?"
"Hmm?? What was that, Elijah?"
"A book. For my buh-lection. My leaf buh-lection."
I looked down at the two leaves he held in his hands.
"Ohhhh. A leaf collection. I see..."
My first thought was something along this vein:
oh man...that will take a long time...
finding an album...labeling the leaves...collecting a bunch of leaves...
well...I'd better let him.
It's not like he's asking to go inside and watch a movie.
He wants to do something creative and school-ish.
I love things that are creative and school-ish.
What kind of homeschooling mother would I be if I didn't
let my little boy make a leaf collection--
especially when he asks to do one!
Besides--he's saying "collection" so CUTE!
I wonder how I will spell "buh-lection" on my blog??
I'd better give him an answer now.
Let's see...uhhh...
"Why, yes I DO have a book for your leaf collection Elijah. Let's go get it."
Linnea was four steps ahead of me.
She loves doing that kind of thing.
She took a notebook from the shelf.
"Will this one work, 'Lijah?'
"Yep!"
They both hurried to the table; Elijah grabbed his pencil box.
"Ok....'Elijah's Leaf Book' will go at the top," Linnea said.
Elijah used his glue stick to smear glue on the back of a maple leaf
and an oak leaf and smoosh them on the paper.
Linnea wrote "maple" under the maple leaf and
"oak" under--you guessed it--the oak leaf.
And then they were done.
Well, that wasn't so hard now, was it?
And I was all set to say "no."
Just 'cause I didn't feel like it.
And 'cause I thought it'd end up to be a big project.
For heaven's sake, he's only THREE.
What was I thinking--three-year-olds don't do big projects.
They do whatever they can in four and a half minutes, tops.
And then they move on to the next thing.
I need to say "yes" more
and "no" less.
It's not like it was an obedience issue--
it's about letting the children explore the things that bring them joy;
the things that will help them blaze their trail in life.
I'm so glad that Elijah made his little buh-lection.
It's on the fridge--reminding me to say "yes."
I had a similar thing happen today with Zoelle. We had just gotten done raking our yard and there was a big pile of leaves. I was all ready to go into the house as it was getting dark, the mosquitos were out, and I was tired. But then she asked to play in them. My first thought was to be crabby and tell her no. It was actually on my tongue to do so, but then something flitted into my mind to wait before I spoke and to tell her yes. So I did, and she had a blast. So did I! :)
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