His project or mine?

Uh oh, not a project!

There I was. Opening up my son's daily Kindergarten folder to see the "P" word.

Nooooo....not a "Project"

"Next week, we are having a science hat parade (A What?!?). Your child has a list of science words to choose from. Please build the hat according to the science word (I.e. All parts of a plant: stem, leaves and flowers). We will be wearing them in the halls on Wednesday!"

Cool! One week notice. Ready, Set, Go! 

Go time for mom, that is! After dropping the kids off at school, and fighting traffic, baby girl and I got to go flower shopping for Kasen's project! Well, Reagan mostly tried to pull the flowers apart and eat them. But, that was her way of contributing. 

Later that evening, Kasen helped assemble the glue gun, and cut the flowers with wire cutters (because the stems have wires in them). After that, he must've forgotten about his project because there I was. 9:55 p.m. on Tuesday (the night before the project was due). It made me think about parental involvement in kids' school projects. How much are we supposed to get involved as parents during these times? Obvious to me, Kasen needs help with gathering supplies, and assembling his flowers with hot glue. But, the rest? It's ALL him. I asked him what he wanted to do, and he was very specific. "First, I want a layer of leaves. Then,  I want the hat to have blue flowers. But, they need to be cut short because the are kinda big and bulky. And then, we'll kinda wrap the others around it."Okay. So, I did exactly that. I tailored the hat to his specific instructions. 

It does make me wonder, fear and realize. I wonder if  he were to gather the supplies, assemble the hat and parade it around at school, all by himself, would he be beaming with confidence? Would he feel more accomplished? Crap! I fear what I teach my kids...Am I not teaching confidence to my kid at 6 years old? Don't get me wrong, he has a LOT of it to begin with, and sometimes ends up being a little cocky with attitude. I think that's okay though. Knowing Kasen, he also is that kid who loves attention and stuff. If you are waxing your toes, he wants to wax his toes. If you are eating dirt, he wants to eat dirt too. The kid just wants to be involved in whatever you're doing. In fact, he wants to be involved in everything so much that he starts a project and doesn't complete it before moving on to the next one (We're working on that one!) He gets distracted and finds something else to do.

So here we were. His first project in school. It was a success! WE made something that (I'm sure) was completely original. That's him. Original and different, just like he should be. We had fun, and I'm not sure if next time I'll be able to let go, and let him do it on his own. I'll try, but probably will be standing right around the corner in case he needs me.

 Besides, what's that saying?

 "Behind every great kid, is a mom who's pretty sure she's screwing it up." 

Yep, that fits.

Fantastic plants!