The Next Martha.....

I blame Parents magazine, really, for planting false seeds of creativity in my mind.  Their captions cajole, "It's So Easy; Projects to Do With Your Kids; Fun and Memorable."  If I remember correctly, the caption under our jack-o-lantern project of choice read, "so easy to make, it's scary."  The only thing scarier was manuvering the hot glue gun, while watching my preschooler cut poster board with safety scissors on my carpet.  What better way to spend an October afternoon following a morning of homeschooling than on a pumpkin project?!

After gaining a dose of confidence for so easily navigating the aisles of our local craft store, I came home full of optimism and even said to my children as I lugged our pumpkin into the house, "Take that, Martha."  This, of course, was greeted by questioning looks of who's Martha? Martha, I'd like to take this moment to apologize for my vain outburst of pride.  To the other Martha-wannabes who were born with my inability to do something as simple as tastefully decorate a Christmas tree, allow me to share some of the lessons I learned, so you, too, don't think that following the large, clearly marked aisles at Hobby Lobby also make you a craft expert.

1.  Two months of preschool does not make your son an expert in using scissors.  On a project that should have taken twenty minutes start to finish, I spent forty of those minutes cleaning up tiny slivers of green streamers and poster board shavings, yes, shavings.

2.  The adjective, hot, in hot glue gun is a descriptive term.  Just ask the large blister on my forefinger.

3.  If your parenting magazine of choice says a project is "kid friendly" have a good chuckle and be prepared to say, "Don't do that." "Don't touch that."  "Yes, the glittery craft foam is for the pumpkin; that's why we bought it.  No, I don't think there will be any left because Mommy used forty square inches trying to cut a hole in the middle of a square for the belt buckle."  "Yes!  The glue gun is hot."  "Those are Mommy scissors not little boy scissors." and so on.....

4.  Your three-year-old son's idea of neat and your idea of neat reside in separate, distant universes.

5.  Your six-year-old daughter will grow bored with watching you attempt to glue streamers and a flat hat to the top of your very round pumpkin.

6.  Repeat after me, "I am not Martha Stewart, I am not Martha Stewart."  Don't be disappointed if despite your best efforts, your witch pumpkin looks just like your kids constructed it.

Actually, when all was said and done, the kids and I had a great time, and our witch pumpkin looks, well, like a witch pumpkin; granted in the time it took us to build ours, Martha could have whipped up pumpkin witches for the entire state of Connecticut.  But, perfection was never the goal; it was to enjoy the afternoon with my sweet little ones.