“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.” – Fred Rogers of “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.”
Given a chance for imperfection, play and work merged this summer.
In St. Louis, the six-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter knew what she wanted to do when I came. She slid into the big chair beside me. “I want to sew.”
She knows that I usually travel with needles and thread and scrap fabric.
“What do you want to sew?”
“Another bag … the one we made before is not big enough,” she assured me. I had to smile. We had folded a bandana in half at Christmas time and guided her as she used the Featherweight sewing machine to make a sleeping bag for her doll.This time no sewing machine, just Aida cloth I had trimmed away from completed pieces, floss leftover from kits and needles with big eyes.
“Okay, here is the thread, which color do you want? You could sew on a button or maybe you should learn to thread your own needle and knot it”
Across the room, my son heard my question and cast his vote, “Thread the needle.”
I handed her a needle with a large eye and turquoise thread. She pushed it through the hole, we lined up the ends and she rolled a knot. With the short threads I gave her, she had plenty of practice threading the needle and sewing.
Her little brother, just turned four, wanted to try. I prepared a needle and thread for him. I started to explain how to go up and down, but the minute I turned my back he created a knotted mess. When he bored with the game, I tucked it away to snip and release later.
About a month later, our 3-, 5-, and 7-year-old grandchildren visited. My daughter warned me that the 5-year-old wanted to bring her little chopping board.
“Grandma has a chopping board,” she assured her little cook.
She reluctantly relented and left her favorite board at home.
I do have a chopping board or two and I have aprons. The minute I selected a black apron and tied it on, I suddenly had a couple of volunteers.
“Do you want an apron?” I pulled out my selection of choices. The five-year-old chose the vintage child’s apron that someone made decades ago. She inspected the chopping boards I offered her until she found exactly the size and shape she wanted. She pulled a chair over to the counter and stood to my right cutting an apple.
She sliced the apple partly open. “Look how strong I am,” she announced proudly. She reached between the pieces and began pulling the apple apart.
“Wow!”
She sliced and chopped the rest of that apple into many little pieces, including removing the circle of seeds – I think she bit some of those out to remove them.
Her three-year-old sister grabbed a stool and shoved it to my left side. “I wanna help.”
“Okay. Hmmm, what can you do?” I looked around the kitchen and considered the meal I had planned. I really didn’t have anything she could do.
“Here, you can cut up the butter,” I said as I pulled a stick out of the refrigerator, gave her a clean chopping board and a butter knife. She chose a little baker’s apron and began cutting the butter into blocks and then slices.
“All done. What else can I do?”
“Oh I think you need to cut it up some more,” I assured her.
So she pulverized the butter in the minutes before the meal.
As we sat down, they announced, “I helped.”
After everyone had left the kitchen, I slipped the bits of butter off the chopping board into a plastic container to save for the next time I make cookies and swept the leftover apple core into the trash.
Their contribution may not have been perfect, but it was a beginning. I can have a neat, controlled kitchen, perfect food and tidy sewing basket any day, but when I visit with the grandchildren, it is time to let them play while they learn new skills.
(Joan Hershberger is a staff writer at the News-Times and author of “Twenty Gallons of Milk and Other Columns from the El Dorado News-Times.” Email her at joanh@eldoradonews.com)