Sometimes the best projects come not from me, but from them.
At the start of the summer, my six year old decided he wanted to start documenting things around here, starting with this (and this right here makes my cockles all warm and fuzzy.)
He calls it the “My Life is Good Because…” book.
His idea was to make new pages about stuff he loves in his life. Which I love!
I mean, you mean to tell me he thinks his life is good? HOORAY! A mom never really knows if she’s doing things right and I have to say that the very fact he is appreciating his life and actually thinks the things in it are good makes me feel somewhat validated as a mom, like maybe despite how much yelling or shenanigans is going on, at the end of the day, our family is not that dysfunctional after all! (A mom can dream, right?)
But even without that (because this isn’t really about me anyway), I see vast great potential here!
We are each doing a page or two this summer as a family, however many pages we want actually. And then we’ll do it again at Christmas break and bind the pages. Voila! A homemade family book of 2012 and everything we loved about it.
A tradition born.
Not only does this give them something to do during this summer, it gives them a place to record what they love about life, a space to appreciate life, and then at the end of the day, historical documentation of their life at 6 & 4. A way to look back at the year we just had and look forward to the next.
We can get as creative as we want with the pages, use their favorite stickers or photos, drawings, whatever we want really, and it then becomes a family project about WHY LIFE IS GOOD.
What I really love about this right now is that he started with a drawing of his family.
Oh be still my beating heart.
I need a moment I’m all verclempt.
OK.
So if they never get bored with this which I am sure they will and I’ll have to get creative here to keep it going perhaps with bribery and/or hot cocoa or watermelon, we can do it again at the start of next summer again. And then make it a thing.
And again the next year.
So we can see the progress of our lives and our writing and see how far we’ve come. Oh how I love this idea I am going to go work on my pages right now.
Added bonus: it also takes the pressure off of me to scrapbook. Which I love to do but who are we kidding, I have bins and bins of scrapbooking stuff and files upon files of photos I’ve never printed, so you know how that’s going to go.
Do you have a yearly scrapbook? What projects are you doing this summer together as a family? More importantly, if you were going to fill in the blank, how would you do it? “My life is good because ______.”
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because I have friends like you! And we’ll always go dancing!
because I have a terrific family who supports my crazy (running, triathlons, etc.). Because I’m healthy again.
What a great family project, and how sweet that it was your son who had the idea.
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I LOVE that Christie! My life is good because I am alive & able to do stuff!
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