My kids are off on the first week of Spring Break this week. They get two weeks, so next week, when they are back home hanging with me is when we will do all the fun stuff. This week belongs to the Spring-cleaning Fairy known as Mom.
Okay, Mom is not fair. I will not be tackling my children's rooms at all in their absence. Truth is, we do enough reduce, reuse, recycle all year to not need the giant clean-out that comes with the month of March. We have established the "lost sock basket" for all those socks that mysteriously have no mates at the end of the dryer cycle; the "too small box" for all clothes that show too much belly, too much ass, too much ankle, or too much forearm but not a big enough neck; and an "I hate this" bag for all the clothes that are stained, torn, never did fit quite right, or have changed shape because of general wear and wash. Toys have a similar life cycle.
So no, not Mom, but instead, I am doing the garage. My stuff, stashed for keeping or hoarded for projects that have just been collecting. I found a box of preschool-teaching materials (I will tell you about my adventures as a Child Development Center Director some other time) that I used with my children before they started pre-school and have long since outgrown. I have been lugging these boxes around for years and years, full of art projects, and math games, and letter writing supplies. There is an entire program on Money and Time-telling. There are bulletin board cutouts. There are mini-report card/congratulations/graduation/completion/you-made-it forms and buttons. There are actual mimeograph stencil papers for use on those old (wonderful smelling) copy-turn-drum machines. What the heck did I still need all this stuff for?
Yes, I will do the right thing, and post it to Freecycle now that it is off my shelves and out of boxes, and let some homeschooler or kindergarten teacher have it all. It will get a new good home, or at least on that is not in my garage, thank you very much.
But, I also found the art supplies. I found glitter. I found glue sticks. I found string. I found PeopleColor pens and paint. I found origami paper. I knew I had origami paper somewhere. I wished I could have found it when my son was reading "The Strange Case of Origami Yoda" and "Darth Paper Strikes Back" but that might be worth a bed time story or two next week. I found stick-on jewels, and colorful plastic shapey thingys. I found my craft box full of paper edgers and punches and wavy/curly/zig zaggy scissors. I found jewelry supplies. All hidden behind-and-around-and-in-back-of. I had forgotten all about them. I think I am in heaven.
Yes, I started organizing all of it on the table and trying to decide how to create an art area so that none of it just ends up back in boxes and in the back of shelves. Having moved some of the teaching materials out of the way, I think I have the perfect spot for everything, too. I got tired last night, and realized that the excitement I was feeling at 10pm was not the same at 1am, and I had better get some sleep. Work and all that, you know. So when I go home, and it is still daylight, I will see what progress I have made.
I want it to hold the same magic I felt last night, and that I can share with my kids when I have the art area in a usable space. That will happen rather quickly now that I am motivated. I will get back some of the preschool magic, and get to play. I will also open back up the world I have been missing.
I had an art area once. In a basement. In a house. I lived there for 10 years with those art supplies at hand and ready to share with my then very young children. I wasn't allowed to use them because they were messy, and I had responsibilities to keep the "borrowed" space clean in case someone else needed it. It wasn't mine, and it never occurred to me that it was never going to be until I left.
Until I wrote that just now, I didn't realize just how afraid that made me, the idea of having a space to create but it not belonging to me. How someone could take it away, judge it, belittle it, and so I hid it. It is like my writing, and my parents expectations. And how since then, for over a year in my own house, I have not created that space. Sigh.. revelations.
It just became a mission. Damn, I love when I work things out by writing them down! I will get to work on the art area, and that creative part. I will share it with my kids, and hopefully be messy and spontaneous in the process. Spring cleaning just got better! Clean a garage, a past, and some old expectations in one fell swoop. Who knew having my kids be gone would be so productive for me? Spring. Bring it! I will write more about what I create, what we create. I am excited. I can't wait to go home.
