My preschooler is a slob. Liv throws herself into every activity with such wild abandon that she neglects the precision needed to get the task done without coming out covered in debris. She's the only one in her class that requires a smock for meals (not a bib, a smock), and she comes home each night covered in the day's art projects. She flings toys around the room in the most incredible, imaginative play, and reprimands me for "breaking her campout," when I put the piles of things she's heaped in the middle of the living room away. Being as Type A as I am, I'm often struggling to bite my tongue and let her be a kid. I worry that my child will inherit my anxieties about life needing such structure, and that I'll stifle that magical sprit and whirling dervish she has in her.
In an effort to finish some tasks around the house the other day, I set Olivia up in the kitchen with a sheet of paper, a paper plate with three small blobs of color, and a paintbrush. I walked away. In coming back to see how she was doing, I found my girl: handfuls of blue paint running up and down her arms, a trail of blue paint on her nose, and polka dots dabbed on her cheeks and forehead. My first inclination was to run for the Spray-n-Wash, but instead I started to laugh, and called all willing parties to come observe the splendor. "Look Mom, it's my magical gloves!" she exclaimed with such pride I couldn't help but be proud, too. I put more paint on her plate.
In reality, my daughter is helping me learn to find child-like pleasures in the messes that she creates: the pile of toys she stacks with her own sense of precision to build a city, the way she empties her stuffed animal bin, lying each facedown and tucking them in for a rest with EVERY blanket torn from her color and texture coordinated closet. There is magic in that, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
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