I’m not a crafty mom and I don’t save doodles

Last week, Emmalynn had her Valentine’s party at school. The kids were supposed to decorate a box and cut a hole in it to collect Valentine’s.

Listen, I’m not a crafty mom. I mean I can be! I have made some awesome birthday cakes for the girls. See pictures for proof.

I can be crafty occasionally.

But, it sort of stops there. I don’t have the motivation to get a cricket and learn all that jazz. To go shop for extra craft supplies. I’m very much a let’s figure it out with what we have type of person. And for the most part my kids are happy with that.

Well last week I wondered if maybe I should step by game up a bit. I’ll be the first to admit to you that comparison is the thief of joy.

Let me say that one more time for y’all.

*comparison is the thief of joy*

So Tanner took Emmy to school and I stayed home with the other girls to finish homeschool and get ready for my appointment to check on incision healing.

Let me back up and explain that Tanner made the Valentine’s box with Emmalynn. And really Emmy dictated what and how it was being made. She did it all on her own, with the exception of cutting the hole. And Tanner, bless is heart, tried to make it look a little more...put together.

When our oldest was in preK doing all these same crafts and we only had just the two kids. I was much like Tanner. My OCD had us making all kinds of cute things. Which were cute but not her own organic designs. I’ll call it that, because what Emmy made ... it was her own design. Throwing that word organic in front of it makes it sound a lot fancier than what it actually was. See photographic evidence of this Picasso of a Valentine’s box. And then see her best friends box. Her best friends mom is actually my best friend too so we definitely discussed how her box made me feel like a shit mom.

Emmy posing with her valentines box

Emmy's best friend and her insanely cute valentines box

So when we went to pick Emmy up from school that day, Tanner says to me “you have to get a look at these Valentine’s boxes when they come out.”

My friend and I laughed as we stood in line for pick up and talked about how painful it is to make crafts with children. We sized up the other Valentine’s boxes and talked about how cute they were and I decided my kids will definitely not have an excavator or unicorn Valentine’s box until they are old enough to do it themselves.

Y’all, I will say they were adorable. They were definitely family crafts. Definitely some crafty moms that care a heck of a lot more about sentimental crafts than I do.

I’m so awful about my kids crafts and doodles. To be fair, they approach me with at LEAST 10 doodles daily. They range from genuine attempted art and colorful pictures, pencil scribble paper then folded into a fan held together by a pony tail and post it notes with circles on them.

And my children cherish every.single.one.

I, do not. I let them sit in a pile for a little while and sneak them into the trash when they are in bed. I rarely feel guilty about this, until they see them in the trash and have a melt down.

This melt down over thrown away trash may be a thing unique to girls, I don’t know. But it’s obnoxious. In my defense I do keep the really cute crafts. The calendars, hand and foot prints, ornaments, artwork with their pictures and so on. Those all go in a special box.

What I’ll end up doing with that box, I honestly don’t know. Grandmas reading this, what does one do with the box of keepsake crafts?

My mom occasionally brings me things like that from my childhood. I feel obligated to keep them because she did for so many years and then I laugh because I don’t even want to keep half the stuff my kids make, why would I keep crap I made!

Surely I’m not the only mom that feels like I should care more than I actually do. Am I somehow destroying my kids confidence by deeming their doodles not worth of fridge space?

Is my fridge space even that valuable? It’s cluttered with expired coupons, doodles now covered in water marks from when they spill while demanding they fill their own cup up, magnets that don’t actually have the strength to hold anything up and a stray alphabet letter or two. I suppose it has room for another post it note with a circle and a stick figure on it.

Just a few of the doodles/crafts that were handed to me with a "mommy DO NOT throw this away" demand

Emmy’s valentines day box may not have had a theme, organization, a purpose, design or color scheme but it was her own creation and I laugh every time I see her holding it because by gosh she is so proud of the thing.

I’m sure she will be checking the trash can regularly for the next week to make sure I haven’t thrown it away.