March 4, 2014
“Let them be little.” Such a good quote. So true. And so not easy to do sometimes.
My 5-year old will be “Star of the Week” next week in his preschool class. One of the components of this honor is to complete a poster, in his handwriting, on which he answers all sorts of questions about himself. This is very exciting — he has been waiting to be “Star of the Week” for months, so we got to work on his poster right away when he brought it home.
Since he learned his colors as a toddler, my son has loved the color red. It was probably Elmo’s influence, and although he is long past loving Elmo, he still loves the color red. Since the poster is all about him, he insisted on writing his answers in red marker (rather than pencil, which would have meant any mistakes were erasable. But in marker, they were not).
Line 1: Name. He makes his J backwards. Type A control freak Mommy grits her teeth and winces. What do we do? We cannot erase the backwards J. Mommy actually thinks in her mind, I wonder if we have whiteout in the house… WHITEOUT. For a 5-year old preschool poster. Unfortunately for him, he has inherited a bit of Mommy’s OCD and is also bothered by mistakes. He wanted to “fix”the backwards J and his “fix” was to put a big red X on it and carry on. (There were several other big red Xs throughout the poster where other mistakes were made, each as equally as painful for Mommy to see.)
Let him be little, Mommy. Let him be 5. Let him be in preschool and be proud of his “Star of the Week” poster that isn’t perfect. But it IS perfect. Because he wrote it on his bright red marker and it is all about him, backwards J and all.
And then there is my little princess-loving fashionista. My daughter is 3. One of her favorite morning activities is to get dressed into “day clothes.” Yesterday, her “day clothes” outfit consisted of: a pink Minnie Mouse shirt, a purple glittery tutu, pink leggings, purple socks, pink shoes, a pink braid clipped into her hair, a flowered headband, 3 necklaces, and 4 bracelets. None of the shades of pink (or purple) matched or even complimented each other very well. There was so much going on in this outfit you did not know where to look. Before venturing out to the store, however, she decided that this ensemble was waaaaay too boring, and switched to a dress-up princess dress. Her new choice was an old, sad, hole-ridden hand-me-down that has clearly been loved by many other 3-year olds before her. The jewelry and headband stayed because “they match my outfit, Mommy.”
She looked absolutely ridiculous. And beautiful and hilarious and she was happy.
Let her be little, Mommy. Let her be 3.