Boy Mama: Simple and Strange?

Once again dinner time came around (why does it keep doing that??) and I was trying to keep my 3 year old occupied. He grabbed the onion I was going to use off the counter and started peeling it. My first instinct was to take it away from him, but then I stopped and thought really what harm could come of him peeling an onion? It was occupying him and he was enjoying himself. So I let him go with it. He spent a good 10 minutes peeling the onion and making a pile of the skins.

I was so happy to have a few minutes where I was not peeling him off my leg or warning him about this or that hazard in the kitchen that I found myself saying, “Would you like to glue those skins on some paper?” I got an enthusiastic, “Yes!” So I grabbed some paper and glue and he got to work.

The result is not a masterpiece, but this was not about making art. This was about the him. This was about the process. The process of my son picking a task and going with it. He was very proud of his onion skin collage, but then wanted to do it again with an avocado…. 🙂