“But Mom! I need more paper than that!” She says.
“G, girl. This is mommy’s printing paper. 10 sheets is more than enough.”
“Mommy! I want to make something very special. Please, can I have more?”
I sigh heavily, as I reach for a handful more. “This is all, G. I don’t want you wasting all of my printing paper.”
She takes her stack of paper and runs to her room. She closes the door just a bit. I can hear the sound of the crayon box hitting the floor.
I go about my work.
A few minutes later, I get up to grab a glass of water. As I walk past her room, I see her laying on the floor. She has the papers stacked just so. She carefully puts a line of glue down the left edge of one paper.
I watch her as she does this over and over again.
I finally make my presence known.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“I’m making a book, Mommy.”
“Oh, how wonderful!” I say.
I leave her to finish her book.
An hour or so later, she walks into my room and hands me the book she just made. “this is for you, mama.” She says as she walks away.
“Come back! I want you to be here while I read this.”
“But Mom!” She replies. “I need to make another one!”
I let her go on her way. I open the first page.
I see my toyz.
I turn the page.
I like my iskreem
Next page.
I wot to go to the prk.
Last page.
I like you.
I get up out of my chair to go tell her how much I love the book she wrote for me. I find her on her floor, gluing more pages together.
“I loved your book, G. It was so great!”
She stopped gluing, looked up at me and said “You liked it?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Oh, good! I want to write books when I am an adult. I hope everyone likes them.”
I instantly felt guilty. “I don’t want you wasting my paper.” I had told her.
I had accused of wasting my precious printer paper. I was annoyed that the construction paper she had in her room wasn’t good enough. She just HAD to use (waste!) my precious printing paper.
Except she wasn’t wasting at all.
She was creating.
My girl is a writer. She writes books. She can have as much paper as she wants, any time she wants it.
How cool!!!! You have a little writer on your hands!
awww. this kid kills me.
How wonderful 🙂 Sounds like you have an artist on your hands.
*sniff* tears… so beautiful. I love your kid. well, kids really. But in *this* case I’m talking about the fabulous G. Because you blog about them all! And photograph them all!
love you!!!
Ohhh, so cute! Go get ’em, girl! She already has a built in network of readers right here 🙂
Awwwww 🙂 I still have some of the books my 19 y/o daughter made for me when she 5 or 6, they are little treasures to me.
That is so great that she did made that for you and just think how fun it will be for you to attend book signings with your daughter the author in years to come!
Well, as a writer she better get to get used to minimal resources, so you did a good job telling her to be sparse with your printing paper. ;).
They do have a way of humbling us, don’t they? I’ve been there…as recently as last week.
I buy my daughter journals & discount notepads – the rule is she can’t tear out any of the pages – when it is full we date it & put it away & one day she will share them w/ her children. She is 9 – we have 5 years woth of books – the bigger $10 ones last about a year – but she must follow the no tear rule or we can’t save it.
how awesome! my youngest is the same way…loves to make things and write. i love it, because i was like that too, yet i, too, have told him he can’t have more printer paper and felt guilty as hell afterward because he made me something amazing. i bought him his own pack!