It has taken me many (and I mean many) years to get to the place where I can actually enjoy having a helper in the kitchen or the sewing room. These are places where I love to create and creating for me means doing things in an organized, perfectionistic manner. I also work with a plan, within a timeframe, and like to get as much done as possible in the time I have allotted to me or to an activity.
Preschoolers, and even elementary children, are not conducive to my organized, perfectionistic, time crunch personality. Spilled flour made my economical side cringe. Misshapen and irregularly shaped cookies made my hands quiver as I had to physically restrain myself from fixing them. Crooked rows that didn't add up to 12 could have been cause for a trip to the Funny Farm.
But I'm learning. I've slowed down. I can clean up the mess later. And I can fix the rows when the child bores of the task and leaves the room. I can even sneak behind a child's back to reshape cookies and take dough from one to add to another to make all things equal.
Don't sweat the small stuff. That's been the lesson of the decade for me. I'm learning bit by cookie bit.
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