Crafty, Not Crafty

My boys are crafty, as in sneaky, cunning, and tricky. They are not crafty, as in sit quietly and peacefully at a table and color or make stuff. I’ve tried to get them to do crafts, but they are just not into it. Is this a boy thing, or have my boys been irreversibly shaped by the rush that they get when doing the male-dominated household (MDH) things that require megajoules of energy and leave me begging for Motrin at the end of the day?

I visited a girlfriend a while back. She has three adorable daughters. John had gone golfing, and I had become inflicted with a bladder infection over the weekend in a city that was not my own with no doctor to come to my rescue. My boys were as rowdy as ever, and her girls were all sitting nicely at the kitchen island doing crafts together. I tried really hard not to hate her. Instead, I prayed for some bolt of enlightenment to enter my boys and convince them that doing crafts was oodles of more fun than chase, wrestle, attack, or any other game that required me to move. As I suspected they would, my prayers went unanswered. God knows boys, and wouldn’t dare try to change them.

So today I decided to try the craft thing again. This time, I used cookies. And icing. And sprinkles. My strategy to ply them with the promise of sugar worked, and the boys happily joined me at the kitchen table to roll out the dough (Pillsbury, thank you very much) and cut the Halloween shapes with our cookie cutters that I had bought many Halloweens ago but have rarely used. Then they waited impatiently as the cookies baked and cooled, and were raring to go when ready for the decorating stage.

I learned a few things during this cookie extravaganza:

1. My boys don’t do crafts because I can’t stand the mess.
2. My boys are uninterested in helping clean up the mess once they grow tired of the activity.
3. My boys grow tired of the activity approximately 5 minutes and 32 seconds into it.
4. Round sprinkles can roll for miles before they come to a stop.
5. Of the 4 million sprinkles that come out of the container, about 25 make it on to the cookie. The rest go all over the table and the floor.
6. Once I say they can’t eat anymore of the cookies or icing but can keep decorating, all interest flies out the window.
7. I can’t decorate any of the cookies, until the boys lose interest and then I am in charge of decorating the rest.
8. Either way, I don’t get to eat any.
9. Each cookie must have one bite taken out of it before it is considered complete.
10. Icing sticks to hair almost as well as gum does.

At least they enjoyed eating them. So, maybe we'll try again next year. Anyway, here are pics of our cookie extravaganza.

I think only one or two of these cookies made it onto the tray without a bite missing. I guess we won't share them with friends. We will share them with dad.