Go ahead...make a mess

Every once in a while, I have these moments where I can stop and realize that I'm doing a great job as a mom.  That he really IS better off here with me than at a daycare center or even with grandma.  One of those moments came a few days ago (I know, I'm behind) after cleaning up yet another mess.  Yes, you read that right.  It is possible to have a good mom moment while cleaning a mess.  I'll explain...

A month or so ago, we visited a local pumpkin patch.  While there, I found it difficult to pull Carter away from this

Who knew a feeding trough and corn would be such a hit?! So ever since then, I've been trying to think of a way to do something like the trough here at home.  Obviously the whole feeding trough motif doesn't jive with what we've got going on here in suburbia, so it was going to take some imagination.  Sandbox perhaps? Maybe next spring, but it's going to require some work from dad.  Enter the rice box...

I saw a version on Pinterest and against all inner OCD voices, I decided to make my own.  I used rice and split peas (split peas because they were on sale...and pretty) then just dropped a few small cups, an old plastic measuring spoon, and the top half of a small coke bottle for him to use as a funnel. Now you may be thinking what everyone told me- "What a mess." But I still think back and appreciate the time I spent at my grandma Dot's house when I was young.  Not because she let us do whatever we wanted, because she most certainly didn't.  Not because she bought us fancy toys or clothes, because she couldn't afford to.  I liked being there because she rarely said "no" to a creative activity.  Mess or no mess, we were welcome to her acrylic paints, her brushes, her paper, her fabric scraps, her thread, her glue, her perfectly sharpened pencils, her flour and Crisco to make sugar cookie people, her wooden spoons, her pots, her pans, and her rain buckets outside to make mud pies.
I want to give Carter the opportunity to be creative, and more often than not, creativity comes by way of a mess.  As a Science teacher, I think I became more comfortable with organized mess.  Even seventh graders spill, drop, and break things.  So I guess, in many ways, teaching was the best preparation for motherhood.  While I do NOT believe in unorganized mess, ie Carter getting into the pantry on his own and opening bags of dried goods without supervision, I do believe in presenting kids with the opportunity to learn.  And in the few days that Carter has played with his rice, he has learned to keep the mess inside the bucket, and when he does spill, he has learned to get the hand vac and clean it up.  And really, what meaningful activity doesn't require a little clean-up? I can't think of one. And the best part?  Mom can sit him at the table and get up to an hour's worth of work done in exchange for about 3 minutes of clean up!!