Arts and Crafts

Getting grubby is neither Alice nor my favourite pastime. I'm sure that she gets most of her aversion to it from me, although I am less willing to put my hands in my dinner to smear it over my face or to pick out individual peas than she is. I think that she gets quite enough dirt-induced immunity from her continued refusal to walk and putting her hands on the floor all the time as it is.

The nice ladies at daycare asked last week if Alice could be formally excused from craft and messy stuff, since she gets upset when they try to get her to participate. Seeing no need for her to be unnecessarily upset during the days that she attends daycare, I readily agreed. As you can see from this photo of her making Mothers Day cookies, she's just not that into getting her hands into stuff.

The cookies were great and I completely ignored the comment that she had "sort of helped to make them".

Last week we received a couple of CDs from the centre, one containing all the photos that have been taken of her to date (great) and one containing Alice's "portfolio", which is really a school report (average). It seems that, as we already know, Alice love books, music and has settled in nicely; also that she is simply not a "crafter". Most of the "assessments" that have taken place involve Alice, an observer, an artistic activity and a disappointed sounding description of how much she didn't enjoy it or develop "sensory participation" or somesuch. Undeterred, we read the report and then go about our business. Suddenly, *BAM* - 24 hours later, we receive the following e-mail and photos from the daycare place:

"Alice has had an amazing week this week and had participated in many wonderful experiences.
Alice enjoyed some crayon drawing this morning; she chose which colours she wanted from the crayon box then using large arm movements created brightly coloured orange and brown patterns on the paper.
Alice also explored our sensory bags, holding the bag out in front of her she shook them up and down vigorously watching the brightly coloured feathers swirl around in the bag pointing with the other hand and babbling to herself while watching."





I know the last bit isn't exactly "crafty" but I like the bit about her babbling.