Busy Hands

A couple family members (you know who you are) have been asking/nagging/begging for me to update this thing. They're right. It's already into November, and I can feel the slow changes of little boys over a stretch of fall months happening in the lightspeed of retrospection. We've been so busy lately--everyday making, reading, climbing, learning something new--that I can barely remember any of it. There have been soccer games and violin lessons and learning to read, but if I'm not careful, I'm going to forget the the little jump after a scored goal or the huge proud smile he wore from the first page of A Kiss for Little Bear to the last. And part of writing it down is not just to remember the event itself, but to remember to be present, to enjoy it as it's happening.

This fall, I'm taking time to watch my kids. To observe outside the picture frame. I love to watch Cass concentrate. To sit and bear down on a creation full-force. The deliberate way his hand curls around a pencil, opposite from the way he pushes his hair back, the way he gets completely lost in his imagination and how he makes color choices--particular, intuitive, thoughtful. Cass loves to use his hands, and he's really good at it. He loves to draw and shape clay, and it might sound strange to non-Waldorf types, the kid is currently obsessed with finger knitting. I took him to the yarn store the day before yesterday, and after so much touching and admiring and great deliberation, he picked out two rainbow colored skeins and hasn't been without a strand of it trailing from his fingertips since. He also taught himself to whittle, although he didn't know the name of it when he started carving found little pieces of wood into shapes. After I gave him a little paring knife and taught him how to only carve away from his body, he made a crude bowl. He's so proud of it, and keeps refining it, hoping to give it to a friend for her birthday.

So began Art Wednesday, which I started to help give us some structure after school and a defined space for creative projects. Seed and bean collages, painting, leaf printing, pinecone art, Halloween decorating ("The Table of Terror"). Sometimes there are a few other kids, some days it's just us. Ollie loves the idea of it, but rarely stays focused--like any three-year-old--for longer than ten or so minutes. But he feels like he's a part of it, and takes just as much pride in the finished project. He's also really proud of his brother. I love it when he says, "Cassie made that" and beams. For all they fight (there's plenty of wrestling and hitting and occasionally even a bite or pinch), they're still each other's biggest supporter. Don't even think about taking the paintbrush from Ollie when Cass is around, even if he's not using it. Lesson learned.

Here, some photos of Art Wednesday from the past couple months.