Mommy confessional: art projects

I don't like doing art projects with my children.

I do like doing art projects with ONE individual child, but projects done together with all 11 kids... I HATE THEM. I have kids ranging from 3-16. It is just not fun.

Don't get me wrong, I like parading the projects around when they are all done so I look like an attentive mother who cares about the creative development of my children. But I spend pretty much the whole time focusing on how they are doing it "wrong" or making too much of a mess.

Today Sanndi spilled an entire quart of yellow (oil based) paint on our front porch tile. Then, after we'd cleaned that up, she picked up her freshly painted yellow chair with her hands and was all surprised that it got her hands full of paint. Um???

Then this literally happened today. My kids were (finally) done with their painting their chairs and Nick and I were painting ours. Well, my kids decided this would be a good time to play soccer in our yard. I was nervous that they would kick the ball into where we were painting so I issued a blanket warning. "Kids, IF that ball hits us or our chairs while we are working, I WILL pop that ball."

The eye rolls and under-the-breath sighs abounded, because you know they are SO good at soccer that they wouldn't EVER loose control of the ball. "We're just playing. We're not going to hit you."

I am sure that you can see where this is going.

Not 25 seconds later, the ball hit into me.

You would think someone with 11 children would have more grace and patience than I do, but you'd be incorrect to think that. Because I stood up, put my paint brush down, grabbed the soccer ball, went into the kitchen, grabbed a steak knife, walked back out into the yard and slashed the ball. And then I threw it in the trash. The staff just kind of looked at me wide-eyed. Nick gave me that, "I LOVE that woman" look and my kids just shrugged and started riding bikes.

I issued the same warning about the bikes and they were extremely careful after that to steer clear of this crazy mama.

I wonder what my kids will remember about me when I am old. Will they remember today as the "fun day" we all worked together to make family chairs? Or will they remember it as the day their mom made painting no fun and went all psycho on their soccer ball?

Probably a little of both.