Wearing my art on my sleeve.

I freely admit that I am an overly-sensitive type. 

That being said, I was standing next to the truck yesterday morning waiting for the gas tank to fill, I casually observed an interaction between a hurried mother and her young child at the pump next to me that left me heartbroken. While the woman was also waiting for her tank to fill up, she was busy tidying the inside of her car. Those of us with toddlers know how quickly the backseat can get out of hand. As the gas pump clicked off signaling a full tank, she was finishing wadding up all the miscellaneous wrappers, papers and what-not she found in her car and made her way to the trash can between our pumps. My own pump clicked off shortly after hers, and I returned the pump to its cradle just as she was depositing her trash in the container. I gave a quick glance at her double-handful and caught a glimpse of a crinkled, construction paper creation at the bottom of the pile just as it went into the bin. Having a vast collection of my own at home, I instantly recognized it as something that was crafted by her daughter most likely at a daycare or preschool. I panicked for the child, hoping that she did not see that her artwork had made it into the pile earmarked for the big red can. Isn’t that silly? Just as I thought the mom was in the clear, I heard the tiny whine….

 

“Momm-my, you threw away my….”

 

Cue my sinking heart.

 

Every day for the last few weeks Barbara has marched through the door and proudly presented me with her artwork of the day when she comes home from school and announces that she: 

a.) made this for me, and 

b.) wants to hang it on her wall. 

Certainly I don’t keep every single composition that comes home with Barbie each day. The vast majority are hung weekly on her wall in her playroom, clipped to a clothesline-like ribbon. There they hang until the ribbon looks like its going to rip the hooks right out of the wall, and at that point, the best of the best are chosen to be archived. Usually anything that involves a hand or footprint, indicating her size at this time in her life, or something that was smeared, slathered, spattered or otherwise scribbled with her own little hands. 

Shapes cut out by teachers and instructed to be glued together in mass production to make a bee, a house, a bunny, etc. usually don’t make the cut. (Or anything involving glued-on bits of candy or food for that matter). But even these not-so-extraordinary pieces of handiwork are never to be seen going into the recycle bin with her impressionable eyes. After all, she's probably already an overly-sensitive type too. It’s a sneaky dance on garbage night sometimes, but its well worth the extra effort.