orca mobile

Somewhere in the midst of a dream his voice came through: "Mommy, what is black construction paper?"

I dragged myself out of sleep to examine the expectant face hovering over me. "Huh?" I mumbled, and J repeated the question. "Oh, um, ok, wait, let me get you some." Blearily I asked him what he was doing, and he told me he was going to make an Orca Mobile, showing me the instructions in his Big Backyard magazine. So I got him what he was looking for, surveyed the materials he'd already gathered, replaced the shoelace he had grabbed for "string" with some cotton yarn, and went back to bed for another half an hour. When I woke up, he was already well involved in his project.

Not long after I checked in on him again, he accidentally tore through the body he'd been cutting out. Unphased, he used taped to repair the rip and continued on. I had absolutely nothing to do with this project (obviously, I was asleep when he embarked on it) other than poking a hole for him to put the string through in the end -- he didn't even ask for help then, but I was a little worried at what he might come up with as he was rumaging through the house looking for something to poke a hole with....

After poking the hole for him (which he then asked me to make larger since my original hole was too small), he cut himself a length of yarn, threaded it through the whale's "dorsal fin", and tied it closely with a double knot (where did the boy who wears velcro shoes learn to do that???)



J shows off his just-finished "Orca Mobile". Not long after, the belly panel fell off and he had to reglue it. It amazes me that he doesn't get upset when things go wrong with projects, he just calmly fixes it himself. It also amazes me that he undertakes projects like this -- until very recently he had no interest whatsoever in doing crafts. Everything in it's own time, I guess!

Not only did he undertake and complete his project entirely by himself, but he also hung it on the ceiling of his bedroom by himself. This is what greeted me when I came in from barn chores this morning. The opitome of a self-starter, and with good follow through. He's going to make some lucky employer extremely happy some day! That is, if he doesn't build his own financial empire before he graduates highschool.