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| Ella working hard at her art table in the dining room |
There are a lot of things about parenting for which I have no idea if I'm doing the right thing. One thing that I do think I've done right, though, is to give a large portion of my dining room over to Ella's art corner.
When I was pregnant with Ella and in her early infancy, I entertained fantasies about how my house wouldn't be taken over by kid stuff. I thought I could neatly tuck away every last toy, blanket, and diaper so that my living spaces at least, would never look like the inside of a Babies R Us.
Then of course Ella got bigger and the tiny rattles morphed into play kitchens, and the one little lovey became a gaggle of a dozen large stuffed animals. I kept buying more and bigger crates and bins to contain the STUFF, but eventually I admitted defeat. Within 0.2 seconds of walking into our house, you will know that children live here.
And then there are the art supplies. I don't know if all children share Ella's proclivity for art projects, but what began as a small box of crayons and some paper has become massive piles of markers, colored pencils, play-doh, construction paper, glue sticks, scissors, chalkboards, paint sets, and more. Early on, probably before she turned two, we invested in a small wooden table and chairs for her. We got them at a local wood furniture store, had them stained the color of our dining room furniture where they were put in the back corner, and for a time, I continued to operate in my fantasy world where they would be a barely noticeable bit of kid-dom in our otherwise grown-up (and only) dining space.
Quickly, though, we realized that Ella LOVED her art table. The art table was joined by a large easel for chalk, painting, and coloring on a huge roll of white paper. A set of shelves was installed to contain the supplies. And truly, more than anywhere else in the house, Ella occupies herself for long stretches of time at the art table. Rather than try to limit her ever-expanding supplies, I have given in to the belief that the never-ending piles of colored paper and hundreds of marker colors are imagination boosters. She will sometimes take 30 pieces of paper and draw the same shape on each one. One little circle, over and over. Is this a waste of paper? Should I be encouraging her to conserve her resources? Maybe. But I like to see how her brain works and I think those repetitive pictures must be her version of practice-makes-perfect for new letters and shapes.
She draws elaborate pictures these days to send to her friends and family far away. She makes all sorts of food out of play-doh (she recently made me pretend to eat a whole mess of carrots made out of orange and green play-doh. Does she actually eat carrots? What do you think?). Guests to our house are often found sitting in the little chairs engaged in an Ella-directed painting project or sticker extravaganza.
There have been art table fails, too, of course. There was a day fairly recently when Ella and two of her buddies were quietly playing at the art table while the moms were chatting in the living room. After awhile, one mama jumped up and ran into the dining room. She said later that she heard the silence and knew it couldn’t mean anything good. She was right. The quiet kids had been quietly drawing on the dining room walls with markers, an activity Ella had never done by herself but was perfectly happy to engage in with her friends. Ah, the negative power of peer pressure. As an aside, I would like to say a public thank you to Crayola for making washable markers.
Overall, though, I think the opportunity for endless creativity, developing fine motor coordination, and self-directed play have made the Art Table, no the Art Corner, no, really, the Art Room, a success in my parenting book.
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| Just before her second birthday, Ella plays with playdoh on the uncluttered art table |
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| Making elaborate Valentines for out-of-town friends and family |
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| Big people in little chairs |
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| Fortunately last summer's gluestick obsession has subsided somewhat |
