DeLappenings: Summer Art Challenge

So...

Reasons you know summer-as-you-know-it is quickly winding down:

1. In one day, it’ll be August.

2. This week, I’m buying school supplies.

3. The evening light is already changing. For real.

4. I made my kid cry tonight (Chica) when I mentioned earlier wake-up times looming on the near horizon. :(

Okay, so that last one totally needs a bit more context so I don’t sound quite as mean as I feel.

Chica was lobbying for an even later bedtime this evening, with more stories and songs and snuggles, and it was already pretty late. So I reminded her we need to soak in all the lovely sleeping time we can, before school starts three weeks from today...and it all went way downhill from there.

She cried over having to wake up early.

She cried because said early wake-up makes her tired.

She cried because she’ll miss me.

She cried because I’ll do daytime things without her.

She cried because she’ll have to go to bed earlier.

And she cried because, well, she was tired.

It took a joint Mama and Daddy comedy routine (no joke) to get her out of the dumps, and I felt just terrible—especially since I kinda, sorta wanna cry over all those looming things, too.

Summer is hard.

The school year is hard.

But both are also wonderful for lots o’ reasons and we’re just going to try to soak up these final few weeks with the bestest of attitudes and intentions. :)

And that involves finishing up the items on our Summer Art Challenge so we can have enough time to print pictures and assemble a scrapbook of all our crafty times.

We’re doing pretty well with about 12 (out of 20) completed. But we’ve still got more to go. Luckily, none are too hard, and I have all the supplies for all. We were smart enough to cross some of the more involved or planning-required ones off the list already—including the one we did yesterday:

Taking an art class or making something at an art festival.

We fudged a bit on this one out of necessity, because all the art classes I’ve been able to din require kiddos to be Chica’s age or older. So I can’t go with the younger two underfoot.

But I found a great ceramics and glass studio nearby, and they offer loads of classes (again, for ages six and older), so we just decided to form a “class” on our own and just have a girls outing to get our paint on.

It was lovely, and I can’t wait to see the finished products when we get to pick them up in a week.

I was particularly proud of Chicklet during this outing, because she didn’t quite understand that you pick one item and get one shot at painting it.

So when she was displeased with her colors as they merged together on her dragon, she shoved it aside and said she was done (when I told her we couldn’t pay for something else).

I was bummed when she got a little noisy in her outburst and gave her my phone to quietly sit and do one of her learning games while we continued.

But wouldn’t you know that a few minutes later, she picked back up her brush and declared she was making a rainbow dragon—and painted longer than any of the rest of us.

It really made my heart happy. :)

She truly is a little bit of a crafting perfectionist (her version of beautiful perfection) these days. But I’ll take it. As long as she’s always willing to try. :)