Just exactly when does a child’s craft turn into a parent’s project?

This delightful tale is written by my colleague, Nancy Cambria, family and children reporter at the Post. It’s a situation we can all relate to. Enjoy:

By Nancy Cambria

It was a moment when two hearts beat as one.

My son’s three-year-old hand curled around the glue stick. My big hands held the little strip of paper down on the table. He neatly slid the glue across the back of the light pink paper. I removed my hands. He flipped the paper over and spanked it onto the envelope.

Voila: one valentine down. Twenty-three to go.

My son had arrived home from his preschool last week with a three page packet of valentines day instructions. He was to cut apart the names of 20 classmates and four teachers on an attached sheet of paper and then glue them on to envelopes containing his valentines cards. He needed to further embellish these envelopes with the preschool version of his signature: a picture of a jet fighter. He was to cut out multiple copies of the jet fighter, also included in the packet, and glue them on the envelopes.

The teachers did little to sugar coat it: “This can be an overwhelming task and it may take several days to complete the job,” they said.

Thanks.

He did another one, making choo-choo noises as he slid the glue stick off the paper and into a tailspin onto the kitchen table. We shared a good laugh on that one. And then without warning he dumped me.

“I’m done,” he said, jumping off the kitchen chair and skipping out of sight, leaving a ragged pile of unfinished Thomas the Tank Engine cards idling at the station.

It was Sunday afternoon: crunch time for a family with little kids and two working parents falling behind on 10 loads of laundry. I had spent the morning procuring items from Walgreen’s and Kinko’s after my older son wilted on Saturday because trips to Target, Garden Ridge and Party City failed to turn up valentines cards with an appropriate theme. His valentine instructions came home the week earlier as well. In addition to decorating a shoe box, he needed, at minimum, 24 for his class.

After much angst, the older son decided he would make his own: bird stickers adhered to sky blue paper.

I was not alone out there on Sunday morning seeking my Holy Grail - sky blue stationary with accompanying envelopes. On the way to Kinko’s I passed by not one but two fellow school mommies in their cars, their jaws clenched. I knew what they were doing.

I wondered if they also hastily bought a valentine’s card at Walgreen’s for their husbands as an afterthought. Mine was a Hallmark Card that sang Ring of Fire when you opened it.

We are not a hearts and flowers family. Last Valentine’s Day my husband and I mustered enough romance to order take-out sushi. A few years ago we found a babysitter willing to sit between 1 and 4 p.m. – too late for the brunch-hour jazz trio, but plenty late enough for two glasses of wine. That year was a winner.

Back at the kitchen table, I needed a glass of wine. I bribed the three-year-old back with little heart shaped candies we had intended to put in the envelopes. The memo from school said nothing about prohibiting sugary incentives. His gluey fingers shoved the hearts into his mouth. He did a few more envelopes, then stopped. He put his head in his tiny folded arms.

“This is taking a longggg time.”

The instructions played out in my mind:

“Be sure that you take the opportunity to participate with the children rather than for the children”.

I sat on my hands while he stuck one of the paper jet fighters on the end of the glue stick and then waved it in the air making some sort of motor sound.

I reflected: Just exactly when does a child’s craft turn into a parent’s project? If a child’s hand on the glue stick shares equal pressure with a parent’s hand gently guiding the glue stick to its correct destination, will the final product be the kid’s valentine or mine?

I am not going to tell you what I decided. We completed the job in about 20 minutes, labels appropriately crooked.

Yet, I felt guilty, though I refuse to tell you why.

I suggested my son put some cheery ink stamps on the envelopes. He obliged, first enthusiastically stamping his hands with many colors and finally leaving his imprint on three of the envelopes: an airplane, a smiling sun and a cute car. Then he slipped away for good. It was the end of the line.

My husband came in from folding the laundry. I told him, “I guess we’ll finish it later.”

“Are you nuts,” he said.

He grabbed an ink stamp. It had a big smiling whale on it. He grabbed a teacher’s envelope.

This one, he said, “Gets Fudgy the Whale.”

It was the funniest thing I’d heard all day. It took 30 seconds to stamp them all: cars, trains, planes, suns, frogs, stars, hearts and moons.

God I love that man.