This is my daughters Toucan diorama. She made it yesterday in-between bouts of arguing with her friend, smoothie sips, jumping jacks and half naked giant bubble blowing in the back yard. "Hey, come here please - we need to do this!" I must have said 30 times. When I finally got her to draw, her friend started chiming in with facts about the platypus or other animals she was finding in her animal encyclopedia while acting as my daughters un-solicited Toucan research assistant. "Holly - what are these saggy bits hanging off this bat?" and similar questions kept my daughter (and me) well distracted.
When we finally got smart and enlisted her friends artistic abilities things got easier - for a while. She happily painted a fly and an egg and the girls worked side by side...until the fly needed to be placed. "I painted the fly Holly, I don't want it to go there!" the friend said, tweaking it to the right and left, head cocked studying the desired composition carefully. Then my daughter would angrily protest - "Well it's my project, I get to decide". The fly in question is the one on the right of middle. Finally I told them to go eat their dinner and I would place the fly.
Not only did I place the fly, but I cut everything out too. Cardboard is hard to cut and I thought this was a legitimate interference on my part as she had drawn and painted everything first, decided on placement after. But then both my boyfriend and the father of my child said within seconds of each other (without having heard each other), that the project looked like a Holly project. I was liking it rather...but was it mine? Surly not...
How much does a parent help with these things anyhow? I will be interested to see the rest of these projects due today.
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