Creative eggscellence

Sometimes the best way to boost my kids' creativity is to just say no.

"Mama, can we make our eggs yet?" Sydney asked for the 437th time since we bought an egg dying kit earlier in the afternoon.

"No," I told her. "We'll do it a different day."

(Someday I'll admit to hear that the real reason I was stalling on the project was I needed to figure out how to hard boil eggs. The online instructions for "perfect hard boiled eggs" that I followed last year yielded less that perfect results.)

And so Sydney let her imagination loose, figuring what kind of eggs she could decorate by herself.

As I worked on cooking supper, she went to work gathering paper, markers, stencils and other supplies, and then began drawing oblong shapes (anything remotely oval is an egg in her world), tracing patterns with the stencils and then cutting them out.

I'm not sure if it's a sign of her increasing attention to detail or interest in her work, but lately I've noticed her tendency to let her tongue hang out when her creative juices are flowing.

One thing that hasn't changed is her desire to display her work when it's done. Her discovery of the tape dispenser means her gallery now includes the entire house. No more is she restricted by the number of magnets and space on the refrigerator. Now I find her masterpieces taped to doors, walls and even the entertainment center. I've carefully checked to make sure the tape isn't damaging the surface underneath, and so far there've been no problems. And then, within a couple days the art work disappears into the recycling bin.

Why does this process work? Two common phrases come to mind: Out of sight, out of mind. And there's plenty more where that came from.