Hi Ms. Mom,
Girl went into Educational Toy Store today with the intent to make a scrapbook. I'm having a hard time recalling exactly how Girl came up with this idea - and I will ask her when I see her again.
Anyway, it was fascinating to watch her go from employee to employee, slowly gathering the materials she thought would be perfect for her scrapbooking. She also collected subway passes, checked at Starbucks for comparative sugar packets (as she desired to show the difference between Turkish and Canadian Starbucks sugar packets), and also had the same idea for napkins. (How Girl even knew that I have Turkish Starbucks napkins is somewhat of a mystery - I never told nor showed her. But this is actually a topic that I am paying more attention to. Girl seems quite frequently to "know" things that I've not told her at all.)
Girl's goal is to make one scrapbook page per day. Seeing her design her first scrapbook page was also interesting for me. I was surprised how decisive she was about exactly what (and what not) she wanted on her scrapbook. She liked my involvement, but she made it clear what boundaries of artistic freedom I had in helping her. At one point, she even sensed my personal stylistic desire and said, "Boy, you really like borders, don't you. Why do you keep asking to put on a border?"
"I don't know. I thought it would be nice to - you know - like it would look nice to have something within a frame."
Or, later...
"Something needs to be here," Girl waved at a section on the scrapbook page. "What should I put there?"
"How about the diamonds?" I asked, pointing to the loose gems from a ring she made me that fell apart.
"No. I made that for you."
"Oh, ok."
Earlier, even before going to Educational Toy Store, I had asked Girl if she wanted a shelf in my unit - since she seemed to be creating larger projects in proportion (apparently) to the increased time we were spending together.
"You don't have to give me a whole shelf," Girl said looking at my wall of shelves with me. "Just like, one space is enough." She gestured with her arms to make a rectangle.
"No," I responded. "I think I'll clear out a whole shelf for you."
Anyway, after she finished her first scrapbook page, she (and it took until I got back from Downtown tonight to really notice this) had placed it proudly in the middle of the shelf, displaying it.
One idea I brought up to Girl was to make her scrapbooking results available online. I have several reasons why I think this would be an interesting idea.
Girl asked me at Educational Toy Store whether she should have purchased a "pre-made" scrapbook, or a large, blank sketchbook (which really isn't a scrapbook at all - to be honest).
"Well," I said, with Christina hovering close to us. "It's really up to you, because you'll be the one making it. If you go with the first one (the pre-made), it'll be colorful and fun to work with. But if you go with the blank one, you might also have space to combine writing with it."
So... I had not persuaded her towards any one direction, but she did choose the option that required more work and creativity on her side. Honestly, if she had chosen the pre-made scrapbook - I wouldn't even suggest making it available online because it wouldn't be her own work anyway.
When I asked Girl if it was ok to make her scrapbooks available online, she said I'd have to run it by you first - so here's the email :)
For each scrapbook page that does see the "light of internet" (get it? as from "light of day" haha) I'll make sure any data that could reveal her identity will be squashed / fuzzed out.
What do you think?
Thanks,
Guy
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