Stained Glass Shamrocks {and what they taught me about perfection}

Hi there, friends!

I am so sick of gloomy skies and snow. It was 37 and sunny the other day and I was this close to throwing the windows open! We need some color when we look out the window, and these fit the bill perfectly.

So this was my plan. Fill up a piece of contact paper with torn green tissue paper, trace some shamrocks on it, cut them out, and hang them on the wall. Easy peasy, right? We'll be done in, like, an hour, right? Right.

Plan: Fill a piece of contact paper with torn tissue paper.

Reality: A patchwork of tearing and sticking for small amounts of time over 3 days. Concerns from the 4 year old including, but not limited to: It's too many, what if I don't finish before dinner, that piece is too big, that piece is too small. Responses from Mama including, but not limited to: You can do it! Dinner is in 5 hours, you can do it. That piece is perfect, you can do it.

Jobs appear really big to her. We have learned that we need to break big things into smaller pieces, or she gets overwhelmed and doesn't know how to start. She's a bit like her Mama that way.

Plan: Trace shamrocks onto contact paper and cut them out. Follow the lines, of course. You know, because fine motor practice and life skills.

Reality: "I just want to cut a circle around them."
This is where I got stuck. I really wanted her to cut on those lines. I encouraged. I offered her the bigger one with bigger curves. I cut out the bigger ones to show her how simple it was. I pushed. And still, "I just want to cut a circle around them."

Ok. Here's the thing. She gets overwhelmed. She is absolutely terrified of making mistakes. It's hard to find the balance between encouraging her to do her best work, and letting her set her own standards of success. Will there be times that I need to set the standard of following the directions correctly? Of course. Was this one of them? Not even a little bit.

So I don't have a window full of perfectly cut out shamrocks (because, let's face it, that was my plan). What I do have is something that Abbey can look at every day and see success. She finished a project and it made our house prettier. And because she felt successful, she wanted to do more

It's not spring without a rainbow, right?

.

"Now it looks like spring all the time!"

Yes it does, baby girl, yes it does. And you did it!

Be blessed,
Heather