A Week with Violet

 

 I had the pleasure of having our youngest granddaughter, who is six, with me for a week. Steve was away so we had all the days wide open for fun. We got an early start to each morning and kept busy from start to finish. I know how much energy children have but I forgot that it goes and goes all day and does not wane. So, my biggest challenge was keeping up with all of Violet's ideas. 

Violet loves to draw, cut, glue, fold, build and create. She was content to let her imagination free with all the craft supplies at hand. I noticed she liked to fold paper into three dimensional box shapes so I asked her if she knew what a diorama was. To my surprise, she did! I found a shoe box and she decided to make an ocean scene inside of it. She wanted me to craft along with her so I made two fish to hang in her diorama. We spent an entire morning adding more and more ideas to the scene. I showed her how to create tabs to use in gluing shapes to the bottom and how to use thread to hang things from the top. We added shells, lobsters, and a hermit crab made of Sculpey clay. Finally, in the basement we found a pile of tissue paper leftover from Christmas. Violet crumbled that up into foaming ocean waves and glued them all around her scene. 

The next day we went to the library where they had a special program called, Didgeridoo Down Under. It was a wonderful program with an educator who played the didgeridoo, talked about all things Australian, and had a lizard and a snake for everyone to touch. Violet thought it would be fun to make a didgeridoo so we stopped at the hardware store on our way to lunch and bought three foot pieces of one inch PVC (which the performer suggested) and some brown spray paint. We practiced trying to make the right sounds come out of our didgeridoos and we decided we need a lot more practice. In the meantime, we have future plans to decorate the plain brown pipes with Aboriginal art. When Steve got home at the end of the week, we showed him our didgeridoos. He was amused with them and picked one up to play. He got the right vibration sound to come out immediately! We were jealous. He chalked it up to his playing the saxophone.

The following days were filled with more crafting, another diorama of a farm scene,  lunch at McDonald's, lots of swinging on the swing in the basement, games of Uno, watching the movie "Hook" (during which I closed my eyes and snored), looking at all the jewelry in my jewelry box, trying unsuccessfully to change out Violet's newly pierced earrings, reading books from the library, cooking a dinner, and baking cupcakes.

It was a delightful week. After it was all over, I thought about when I was a young mom and I had four Violets to keep up with. We were together all the time, for home school and play. It brings to mind all the young mothers with children that I see in the stores or at the pool. I recall that season of life and I realize these moms need prayers, kindness, and plenty of support to get through those busy years. It needs to come not only from family and friends but from strangers too. I pray that for my daughters, three of whom are young moms. A smile or word of encouragement from a stranger can go a long way when a young mother is having a bad day or is bone tired. I need to be mindful of this when I am out and about.