Screw crafts. There I said it. But it doesn’t like a relief, more just like I’m admitting another thing I don’t do, like running.

When I was working in the city, I’d be rushing out the door to catch the bus thinking, if I wasn’t at the office today I stay home and teach the boys how to make pretzels.  I had a whole fantasy of shrinkydink cookie decorating parties that would fill the hours between pick up and dinner. Now that I am home, I realized my kids have their own agenda. They want to come home and play Lego or Star Wars. But when we play Lego the only thing I can make is miniature presents that you can’t open (Conrad showed me how, the translucent bricks look like ribbon).

My other issue is that I’m not into imaginative play. You know where we reenact scenes from Star Wars and I’m Asajj Ventress chasing Mace Windoo and I die and come back to life with new powers. Frankly, I don’t think I should be involved in those games. Creative play is their time to flex their imaginations and they need to master make believe on their own. It’s an independent skill that’s as important as wiping their own butts. Since I’m still on butt duty, they can run along with the responsibility of their pretend play on their own shoulders. Of course, I encourage them; I just don’t want to be on the floor saying, “No, now you grow wings and fly away with me in your mouth.”

I suspect they really don’t want me either. When I do get down on the floor to make a cameo I’m kind of like a highly anticipated guest on SNL where the excitement turns to disappointment by the second commercial break. The boys want to love my suggestions, but my approach to playing proves how tone deaf I am to the dark side (what if Mace Windoo and Ventress joined forces to make a really cool hotel! Or no even better, a restaurant!) This is when they patiently explain why that could never happen and then  play at half their usual busy pace to make sure I understand what’s going on, which is quite generous on their part. It’s works for a while and we do have a fairly good time but soon enough they ask when Daddy will be home. Probably the oddest development is that I’m the one who encourages violence. I’ll get bored and suddenly I’m smashing and crashing my jet into theirs causing epic imaginary explosions and then someone gets hit too hard and the crying starts and I’m back to being Mommy.

So our afternoons had a routine where I’d play for a bit, kiss the booboo I caused and then surf the web and do laundry feeling guilty that this is how I spend my time at home in spite of what I expected for us. It was one on one of those aimless afternoon that I stumbled upon  familyfun.com, Disney’s parenting magazine that’s as seductive as Martha Stewart but with none of the ambition and need for a RISD masters to pull off the stuff. In fact, it was familyfun.com that talked me down after I tried to plan Conrad’s class holiday activity inspired by gum drop snowmen featured in Martha Stewart. My snowmen ended up looking  like Olivia Newton John so instead we made these instead.

Well actually David made them but I bought the stuff.

It was a huge success and I thought this is it. I’ll do crafts with them! When Valentine’s Day rolled around  I thought I could improvise and decorate sugar cookies for the boys to give as Valentines to the kids in their classes. I bought a huge bag of M&Ms. Dash helped me make the dough but since it needed to be chilled they lost interest when it was time for the fun part, adding the M&Ms into the cookies. I ended up doing it with David very late at night and the cookies ended up looking like boobs. Tits really. We were going to give each kid two cookies but I was too scandalized by how they turned so everyone got only one.

I mean really what do they look like to you?

Then, last Friday, since Conrad had a playdate and Dash has been watching way too much Super Friends, I tried to make DIY candy necklaces with him, but he just wanted to eat the sour Lifesaver gummies out the bag and play with his action figures. He had very little interest in stringing Honey Nut cheerios on the ribbon so I made him the necklace and he ate it while playing on his own in the play room until the ribbon frayed on a peach gummy and he asked if he could throw it out.

Tuesday was a snow day—the perfect opportunity to make the familyfun.com featured craft of the month: Banana People. But the boys were deep in Lego. So I stood there in the kitchen, itching to cut up a banana and make a person out of it and I realized this is all my issue. This is what I wanted my mom to do with me, but her idea of playing was taking me to Bloomingdales. (And yes, I wish she’d play with me now).  Shopping aside, I realized I want to make these things so I can be the kind of mom that sees this stuff in a magazine and says, yeah I’ve made that. Or I have time to make that. Or that I easily connect with my kids so often that I made that. Or so I can admit to myself that I have snow day fear: when I’m bored and afraid of being stuck in my house for hours with my kids that I think a Banana Person is the one-way ticket to arriving at a-frustration-free-day.Like them, I have to take responsibility for my own make believe notions of motherhood—and the first thing I need to realize is my kids don’t need Banana people—they need me to figure out how to play with them. I made the banana guys anyway. Dash thought his was funny and cautiously nibbled around it not entirely sure that it was, indeed, food. Conrad took one look and told me he didn’t like his. His rejection summed everything up: it was as if he was saying, “No mom, this is not what you need to do.” He brought it back into the kitchen, put it on the table and then asked me if I’d play Lego with him. So I did and I made a pretty cool jewel encrusted Jeep too.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 at 11:10 pm and is filed under My weekly essay, Random acts of mothering. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.