Tuesday 11 September 2012

Versions of Creativity

Today's highlight was the return of Craft club - from the moment we got up, Youngest kept repeating every few minutes "Is it time for craft club yet?"  He even had his shoes on before he'd started breakfast, he was so keen!  It was lovely to see everyone again, and the boys had a great time creating models based on pinch pots, out of clay.  Well, Eldest and Middle made models -Youngest just had fun bashing, poking and squishing - and then ran about generally having fun wile the older ones modelled.  I don't have photos yet as we'll have to wait until they've been through the kiln, painted & so on - but while we wait we can always paint our models that we made last week (with air-drying clay) which have finally dried - so hopefully there will be photos of those coming soon!

We also had a couple of musical moments today - listening to Classic FM on the way to craft club, there was a piece playing by Brahms that had the boys puzzled - they spotted the instruments that were playing without problem, but when it came to how it felt, they weren't sure whether it was happy, sad or something else (it sounded a bit confused or 'all-over-the-place' to me too!) Then they decided the music was painting a picture of an undersea adventure: the happy bits were when the divers were looking at fish and dolphins, and the scary bits were when a shark popped out etc. They kept adding to their narrative as the music progressed - we all liked the piece better after their creative interpretation ;) The second musical moment was when I walked into the lounge to find Middle watching a programme with a live band playing, and I grabbed his hands & we had a little dance round the room, culminating in me teaching him how to twist - it only took five minutes, but it was a lovely moment :)

This afternoon Youngest passed another 'end of stage' test on Reading Eggs - but cheerfully announced to me that Middle had helped him "a little bit" - and when I asked Middle about it, he confessed that he had done the entire test for Youngest!  Talk about frustrating!  He was probably either too tired to be doing it or had been on it too long & got a bit bored.  I wish I'd known!  Anyway, Middle & I had a chat about how it hasn't actually helped Youngest in the long run - hopefully he won't do it again.  Frustrated?  Yes, but I can also choose to be proud of Youngest's "creative" problem-solving, and of Middle's confident willingness to help...

This is why I blog really, because I don't want to forget the beauty in the little things. I almost thought today's stuff was "too ordinary" to write about, but there can be joy in the mundane (especially when I look back after time has passed), and blogging about the 'every-day' highs and lows is my own 'creative' way of trying to make sure I don't miss things in all the busy-ness.  It all goes by so fast, I feel like I want to find a 'slow-motion' button.  Parents everywhere will tell you that children grow so much faster than you can keep up with, and blogging for me is like a textual version of all the photos I take (and I do take lots!): a way of celebrating the 'now'.  The blog and my photos are my 'slow-motion' buttons, allowing me to rejoice in both the fun and the harder bits, and storing up memories to treasure... and of course, if all of that entertains/ encourages others on a similar journey, well that would really be the icing on the cake! 

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