Patience

Patience: something I am trying really hard to have this holiday season.  My first mistake of the season was making a list of all these great things Little Man and I were going to create.  At this point, you would think that by now, I would have caught on to the fact that things that sometimes seem easy are not always.  My original goal: to do an art project almost every day of the holiday season with Little Man.  My new goal: to finish the Christmas presents we have set out to make.  No, I am not totally crazy, everyone is getting the same thing from Little Man this year.  The second mistake I made, the first activity we did for the season may have been a little too easy; we made salt-dough ornaments.  Simple, mix the ingredients, roll out the dough, bake and paint.  We have tons of them! My third mistake, choosing the Christmas present idea from Pinterest.  You would think I would have learned from the whole cup cake incident at Halloween.  Nope.  I should start by saying we have been working on this since the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  For those of you who are counting, that is 11 days and counting.  We have done this project in stages, because that is about all I can handle.  First Stage, teach Little Man how to use a glue gun.  Second stage, attempt to make little circles with hole punch.  Stage three, attach little pieces.  Stage four, teach Little Man how to use fabric shears while fearing he is going to cut my fingers off. Can't tell you stage five, that would ruin the surprise.  Finally, hand off final stage to daddy, who sits Little Man down at table with a cup of hot chocolate while he completes the gifts.  Yes, Little Man is currently sipping hot chocolate at the table, while daddy finishes his ornaments.(Can't let Little Man work with the explosives...that would be bad....)  Next year, I am sending him to M&M's to make ornaments, she has much more patience than I do.