“Stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone ought to be.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
I’m going the long way to solve a problem in my house. This is not an excuse for a long post – in fact the post is only 354 words. Just an admission at the outset that I understand there are more expedient ways to address the issue.
Here it is: Mr. D is in a phase where he wants a lot of things. He sees it on tv and then wants to own it. He’s quite tenacious at five-years-old for insisting on what he wants. Right now we have a “wishlist” for these things. It works to a degree but it’s too easy to just add and add and add to it.
So I came up with the idea to build a box that he could write every wish into (to practice his writing). And for every wish, he has to come up with an accompanying thing he’s grateful for to put in the box too.
I also wanted to show him how we can build things. So I started with the leftover wood I had after fixing my kitchen flooring and measured out and cut some pieces of wood to build a box. Two boxes really – one for nine-year-old Miss O as well so she doesn’t miss out.
I triumphantly carried these things upstairs so that the kids could do the work of assembling and decorating these boxes. But then, on the kitchen counter, I roughly fit the pieces together to show off and saw my mistake.
The base is 2.5” wide – the pieces are 1” thick. Assembled that way, the “box” is only a half an inch. It’s not that wishes won’t fit in there. It’s that they’ll never come out. 🙂
So, I set out to show that it’s okay to wish for things, but then we have to work for them. And I ended up demonstrating that sometimes when we put together the pieces of our dreams, it doesn’t work out the way we intended. But that’s okay too – because we get to refine and repeat.
(featured photo from Pexels)
Surprised By Joy 