I am in kinda stressed frame of mind at the moment
I have mentioned before about Caitlin’s creative streak. When we are at home just chilling and the kids are watching the idiot box, Caitlin would actually “multitask” and do some handicraft, using the scrap A4 papers that HM and I bring home from the office.
She’d make her own pretend mobile phone, camera, toll card, baton (I think she means the wand that an orchestra conductor uses), just last weekend it was a walkie-talkie. She’d get me to play along sometimes using the corresponding walkie-talkie, be the toll plaza / booth, or she’d just draw something; lately it’s the not-so-surprising-for-her-age family “portrait” complete with Daddee having blue hair and as stick-figure skinny as he’d wished he was.
She has an interest in this art stuff, just like Daddee… okay she does acknowledge the joke about Daddee’s hair being blue, so it’s not really a talent gone awry.
Anytime that Playhouse Disney channel shows a 5-minute filler of anything remotely handicrafty or sketchy, she’d head straight for the pile of A4′s and try and repeat what she saw.
So, how do I cultivate this talent, or at least, this interest in her? Our working hours are such that we really only get to see and spend time with her from dinner onwards, and before long it’d be her bedtime already.Otherwise it’s reading with her, either her story picture books or her school books for revision. On weekends, we try and treat the kids by simply visiting my folks, the mall, the pool if Caitlin isn’t still having the sniffles / cough.
Art classes at the shops in the malls and the works that the kids bring home do look impressive, but it’s all assisted and guided in that (I believe) the kids are told what to do. Caitlin does these things all from her own imaginative play. And I don’t want to stifle this flow of imagination and crafts.
But, as Moomykin had suggested in the last blog post, maybe it’s time (dare I say or suggest to the OCD-ed HM??) for Caitlin to start with water colour next??
Here she is making gameboard pieces. She had already cut them up (yes, with grown-up scissors; been at it since last year I think) and here she is decorating them.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Yee-Yee // Jul 17, 2009 at 5:23 PM
sob! sob! sob! My poor girl! Makes yeye so sad to read that she has to self-entertain herself and finding such cheap ways (A4 paper) to be creative. How about daddee and HM take her to a craft store and buy a few fun stuff for her to do.
Do they sell the water doodle? Kids can draw using water pen (refill with water) and erase easily and the great thing about it is… if she draws on carpet, floor or wall… it dissapears!
2 Moomykin // Jul 23, 2009 at 1:21 AM
My fil is OCD so I really have to make sure they don’t make too much a mess when they paint. I am the paint dispenser!
But you could also get her an art set with all kinds of materials, stickers, stencils, stamps, hole punch and scissors and glue. She might like a place to store her crafts too.
Moomykin´s last blog ..Clicking The Kids
3 Daddee // Jul 23, 2009 at 9:19 AM
Yeah, the trouble is to find a place that is not too fussy about being messed up. Maybe like the outdoor verandah etc. I can picture lots of newspapers, drips of paint, spilled water, and now-very-colourful clothes!
4 Sue Choong // Jul 27, 2009 at 4:01 PM
Why don’t you or HM donate a oversized T-shirt to act a coverall if you are worried about dirtying her clothes. As for the mess on the verandah, should be easy peasy for the helper to clean up, yes? Or go check out Art Attack in 1-Utama new wing (me thinks it’s near Dragon-I thereabouts) and maybe you could find something that you are all happy with….
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