- Play dough "creatures" with 11 googly eyes stuffed into the center of it and three pipe cleaners sticking out of the left side of its excessively eye-balled face
- A half dozen 2'x3' sheets of original Eli paintings consisting of 3-4 strokes of blue, purple or yellow paint
- Buttons and popsicle sticks glued to copy paper
And what I know about all these things is that in reality, he is not that interested in creating them. His teacher confirmed this assumption during his first conference (quote - 'He is not into any of our art projects'.)
But I am a first-time mom who feels maternal obligation to cherish every item he creates during this first academic year.
This past month, I picked up Eli one Wednesday afternoon and found a small terra cotta pot filled with dirt and decorated with bits of colored paper sitting in Eli's cubby. This, I thought, is a project that I can appreciate and something we can talk about as it grows even if I am sure he didn't glue the paper on himself.
Now, I have my own issues around potted plant school projects that I think played a part in my giddiness over Eli's project. My earliest plant memory goes back to 4th grade when, as a class, we all planted bean plants in milk containers filled with dirt and, in my memory, paper towels (I haven't researched this project via youtube to verify if this memory is completely accurate but nevertheless, in my mind - dirt and paper towels.)
Anyway, guess whose bean plant never ever sprouted? Yeah, me.
And though I don't have any severe sadness around this memory, clearly I remember it above the many other bad memories I know I have from fourth grade, so my subconscious surely deems it important.
Aside: My one other sad 4th grade memory is of my teacher (who I truly liked and who was a great teacher) walking around with his hands tucked neatly in the back of his pants and then rewarding you by handing you a palm full of peanuts from his peanut dispensing gumball machine.
But I digress. This science project served as my fourth grade epiphany - I do not have a green thumb. Growing things is not my forte. Leave it to the farmers and gardeners who can grow a bean in a milk carton, Corrie. You are not going to save your family by growing your own crops during the apocalypse. And I have lived my life since then rarely trying to grow anything and failing within 2 weeks almost consistently.
So seeing Eli's cup of dirt with a tongue depressor sticking out of it reading 'water me' I should have thought, "Give this to his father immediately." But instead I thought, "This is my second chance." It will be a project for both of us. Get this little plant - parsley seeds to be precise - to thrive at our home. To water it and watch it with him, hopefully riding on his little green thumb coattails.
We carried the little pot to the car, discussing how he put the dirt in the cup (not likely) and glued the papers on the pot (maybe). He thought it was very cool regardless. I put the pot on the floor mat at his feet and threw him into the carseat and we were on our way.
In our car rides home, we often cover a very basic set of topics - what did you have for snack time? who did you play with? what do you want to have for lunch? For quite some time, the answer to all of these questions was pretty much the same - fish crackers. But the longer he has been in school, the more diverse and accurate his answers have become.
We pulled into the driveway and I walked around to get him out of his seat. And that is when he looks at me and says, "Mommy broke my project." The pot, which for as much as I was enthralled with it at preschool, I completely forgot about as we drove down I-5 listening to the Mulan soundtrack, had tipped over and rolled around below Eli's feet.
I killed it.
I couldn't believe it. I ruined his (our) little project. And he knew it. He kept saying it over and over again.
"Mommy broke my project."
"Mommy broke my project."
Guess what he was going to say to teacher when she asked if his parsley was growing?
"Mommy broke my project."
I had to fix this. I had to show him that it wasn't BROKE and that MOM was going to fix it. So I walked Eli to the door, dropped our stuff in the house and made lunch.
I forgot about the plant for 24 hours.
Then I prayed.
I prayed to the sun. To the souls of all gardeners past. To the creator of parsley and school projects. Please help this little pot create something amazing for Eli despite my failures.
I watered it on my own for a week, not wanting to bring its attention back to the preschooler in case nothing happened and I would hear, "Mommy broke my project" one more time.
And then... magic.
I've set the bar pretty low when it comes to how perfect of a mom I plan on being. I can only go up from here.
