Creativity

During the long weekend, D and I had all our kids together for a day or two. That’s always fun, sometimes tiring, but always an inspiration, especially when we get a glimpse of how creative they are.  After one of our dinners, everyone wanted fruit, so I brought out the green apples and started peeling. We don’t have organic apples but my kids love them, so I will make sure I peel them, at least.  Well, I just couldn’t peel fast enough for seven of us, so I decided to whip out one of my favorite  kitchen gadgets:

What I love about this gadget is it’s manual and the children love to use it.  I don’t know how many apples we peeled before everyone had their fill, but we had a big plate of spaghetti-like green apple peel at the end of our labor.  The sight of that must have awakened something in D’s youngest, because next thing I knew, he was braiding them and was quickly  joined by his sister and my own youngest. Of course their green braids were turning brown and sticky, which then inspired my son to run upstairs to ransack our craft drawer! Before long they each had a braiding station in the living room and they were working furiously with their hands, which always makes me crazy happy.

Men at work. Braiding. ;p

They were coming up with really nice color combinations and didn’t want to stop, so they asked if they could spend the night together so they could work some more. The next morning, the first thing they did was start braiding again and even made sure they were not disturbed as they worked. Pretty soon they were asking for more colors.  It became clear that the universe supports creativity because we found every single color they wanted!

Aren't they pretty?

These are the moments I truly appreciate the education we chose for them, despite all the inherent challenges.  Ours is not a home of kids in front of gadgets or television, though we have those moments, too. But we never forget how much more fun it is to use our hands to create.

It all began with an apple. Who knew?