Bedtimes and Messes

I wish I could say that Sean and I are very good at getting our children to bed at the same time every night.  In our ideal world I think the kids would be in their snuggy beds at 7:00, curled up and listening to bedtime stories.  7:30 would usher in Mom and Dad heading downstairs to leave the kids to enjoy some silent reading before lights out at 8:00.  In reality, this NEVER happens except when I have lost all patience.  But then, while the kids may be in bed by 7:00, they are not happy and there are no cozy bedtime stories.  Most nights run about a half hour behind that ideal schedule.  And occasionally, they stay up much later. 

Last week I sneaked into the studio while Sean was reading to Erik and I was supposed to be reading to the girls.  The girls felt my absence and did some investigating.  To their extreme delight they found me frantically stitching up some little balls for Elisabeth, who has developed quite the arm (just last week she not only threw a toy three rows back and to the side in the middle of our church service, she also shot her headband rubber-band-style halfway across the chapel only moments later nearly blinding a row of teenage boys).  The girls begged to join in.  Anna wanted to sew, but I told her I was in a crazy hurry (I knew if I did not manage to get them all sewn in that twenty minutes that Sean had Elle, it would not happen until who knows when).  Because the could not sew, they decided to stuff. Lights-out had come and gone by the time we finished in our little flurry. 

While I felt bad about getting them to bed late that night, their elation at being able to make something in the studio surprised and cheered me.  I can’t seem to find the time to get up there at present.  My kids love to be in the studio with me, but they also love to do their own creating while we are together and that means messes.  I don’t know how to conquer that little difficulty; however, keeping their hands busy stuffing balls meant no random new messes to clean up that night (of course it is still full of all the random old messes). Maybe that is the key to reducing the mess.  Maybe I need to work with them more and not just do my own thing when they come to visit the studio. When I am sewing on my own (which is incredibly rare right now), Lu visits for a bit and then starts pulling out paper and punches and ribbons and glue sticks to make “check marks” (book marks) by the dozen on the floor.  The state of my studio floor makes me not even want to set foot in there sometimes. Perhaps the next time LuLu wanders in curious about the cause of the whirring noise coming from my sewing machine, I should stop my project and take a moment to teach her, to work with her, to allow her the opportunity to learn to love sewing as much as I do (that way we can at least make our mess together).