I am not a crafty person. My mom learned this when my pre-school teacher expressed her dismay with my lack of scissor skills. I haven’t improved much, but I’ve made a life for myself that doesn’t rely on scissor skills, or so I thought.

BB loves to color, loves to paint, loves to glue. She LOVES arts and crafts. This has made it apparent that Captain has contributed his genetics to this. He is great at art. Before I dated him I didn’t know there was such a thing as AP Art. There is and he took it.

Nothing makes BB happier than an art project. And just like Captain, all the joy is in the process. Almost as soon as it’s done, she puts it in the recycling. There appears to be zero attachment to the finished product.

When I hear that the library in the next town over has a story time followed by a craft, I know this will be perfect for us. Orchestrating arts and crafts is almost as low on my list as creating them.

We’ve been twice now. The first time the craft was creating a squirrel. There was an outline of a squirrel on a piece of paper with pieces of grey felt for the body, leaves for the ground, an acorn for its hands and glue for everyone to put it all together.

We approached the craft table. It was surrounded by small children watching their caretakers make a squirrel. I got BB situated. She started to glue leaves onto the squirrel’s body and grey felt in the sky. I have never had to exert so much self-control in my LIFE.

I reminded myself on repeat that I did not come to story time so I could make a squirrel.

The next week I ask BB if she’d like to go to the library again for story time.

“YES! Glue googly eyes and leaves!”

This time it’s a paper turkey and there’s plenty of glue and googly eyes. Again all the caretakers proceed to make turkeys and again it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done to step back and watch as 6 googly eyes get glued on or around the turkey.

I keep asking myself,

“Jessica, if you didn’t have a small child would you be here making a turkey?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Right, then let BB do this.”

The librarian tells BB,

“You’re doing a great job!”

Then she turns to me,

“I’m so glad you’re letting her do that.”

“It’s so hard!”

“I know.”

I never knew my dislike of arts and crafts could be consumed by my intense desire to glue turkey feathers in the “correct” place.

BB’s turkey. And for the record, BB paired the eyes together herself

The turkey we were intended to make