Last night I realized that my little 2-year-old is a little more capable than I'd been giving him credit for. I suppose it's probably normal, as a first time parent, to baby your child a bit and underestimate his abilities. But last night I was surprised and so proud. (This is your warning: this is going to be one of those proud parent posts!)
As I told the story of Jesus' birth to the class, I instructed Finn to sit in a chair like everyone else, and reminded him several times during the story to please, stay in his seat. I let him point out the baby in the picture once, and attempted to include him while teaching mostly to the 4-6 year olds in the room. When it came time for the craft, Finn was still munching on his snack, and I didn't think he'd really be able to do the craft anyway, assuming that he'd be happy to just continue eating and then wander off to play in the corner when he had finished.
I showed the other children a picture of a Christmas Tree ornament that they would be making with Jesus wrapped in a blanket, lying on hay. First I gave each child a white star to cut out, then asked them to choose a colored star for their background. Then they would glue these pieces together, glue another square piece of paper as a blanket around their baby Jesus, glue this to the star, glue crinkled yellow strips (hay) underneath, and finish off the ornament with a pipe-cleaner for a hanger and some extra star stickers.
Somewhere in the middle of doing this craft with the older kids, Finn ran up to me and said, "Mama! Me!" I looked down at him, and realized that he was feeling left out. So gave him a white star which I had already cut out, and brought him to his seat with a glue stick. I began to put glue on it for him, when he again said, "Me!" So he grabbed the glue stick and proceeded to do just the right thing. I thought, "okay, then! I'll let him play with the glue and go back to assisting the other children."
A minute or two later, Finn was at my knees again saying, "star! star!"
Apparently he had been paying attention and realized that next step was to choose a background star. So I showed him has options, and he ran off with a blue one. The rest of the evening proceeded like this. At the end of the evening, Finn had an adorable little ornament that he made largely himself. I did the cutting for him, and attached the pipe cleaner for him, but all of the glueing and sticking things together (as well as advocating for himself), was done by him. He even chose to place 3 star stickers just where he saw another child place theirs (rather than put a million on haphazardly as I would have expected.)
We got to the end of our Sunday School time and I realized that Finn hadn't wandered over to the toy box once! He'd been a bit fidgety during the Bible story, and needed assistance with cutting paper, but other than this he'd participated like the other children. That night, I told Derek about it and he reminded me that Finn has been in preschool for the past 6 months, learning to sit in a chair and follow instructions. Apparently I need to take him more seriously next time I teach.
