Teaching Good Enough

Sometimes, I just need arts and crafts time.  It feels good to do something with my hands, that's not on the computer, and be able to see the finished project.

I bought a heart punch, Valentines Day themed scrapbook paper, and scrapbook adhesive squares and Daulton and I got to work.  My inspiration came from this post on the Flower Patch Farmgirl and then I saved it to Pinterest.  Check out my post on Beyond The Defaults for more information on Pinterest and let me know if you want an invitation.

Daulton was a very good helper and after I showed him how to work the hole punch, he got right to work.  He only took a few breaks to watch iCarly and later to play Wipeout on the Xbox Kinect (holy crap am I sore from playing that game!).

Once we had about 500 hearts punched out (I had no idea we would have 500 hearts until we had 500 hearts punched out), we started assembling the 3-dimensional hearts and attaching them to string.  Daulton watched me put a few together and then decided he was going to try it.

And then he asked me, "Hey Ab, do they have to be perfect?".

I know he was only talking about putting together a Valentines Day craft, but it felt like one of those life lesson moments.  And after a quick glance at Matt, I could see he felt the same way.

So I told him, "Nope, they don't need to be perfect.  They just need to be good enough.  Do you know what that means?"

He said he didn't so we both explained that perfect doesn't exist but its important to always try to do your best.  Matt said it best when he said, "Do you know the difference between good enough and perfect?  Its in your head."

It was the confirmation he needed that I wasn't expecting perfection and we cruised through the rest of the assembly and he helped me hang them around the house.

Were all the hearts perfect?  No, far from it and I had just as many imperfect hearts as he did but that didn't matter because the project turned out great.  It was a fun project for us to do together and it satisfied my need for arts and crafts time.  And for being such a good helper, he got some heart surprises hanging outside of his door this morning.

Why yes, that is a basket of balls on my fireplace.  They say to work with what you've got and that's what we've got lying around everywhere.  It keeps them contained and easily accessible, everyone wins.