Creative

There are so many things I love about this girl, like how she will look through the recycling bin for all the girls clothing catalogs, like Hanna Andersson and Garnett Hill and Lands End, and examine them thoroughly, taking her time to look everything over on every page, and then flip the end cover over and look up quizically and say, “But who pays $35 for a shirt anyway?”  And I love how she looks through the Pottery Bern Kids catalog at all the amazing and beautiful bedrooms, and says, “Even if we had a bedroom like this, we’d never keep it clean.”  So true. Her frugality is a match even for mine.  When she peruses the American Girl Doll Catalog, it’s not out of crazy envy for everything on the pages.  She giggles and rolls her eyes at the prices, and then heads up to the office to make all the accessories for the dolls out of cardboard.  Making things out of cardboard for her dolls is even more fun than the dolls themselves.

Best of all, I think, I love how my daughter looks at cardboard, with eyes so unlike your average fifth grader who admires ipods and cell phones and pop music. (She hates pop music and cell phones with a vengeance!)   On Thursday she walked up the sidewalk from the bus with a heavy backpack on her back and a Super One bakery box in her arms.  That’s interesting, I thought, watching her walk up the steps.  I wonder why she has that bakery box?  She walked in the door.

YaYa:  Hey mom!

Me:  Hi, sweetie.

YaYa:  Guess what!  It was someone’s birthday and he brought donuts for the birthday treat.  I saved my big cinnamon roll donut for now, and I asked him if he wanted the box.  Can you believe he didn’t want this great box? He said it was no problem if I wanted it.  He was going to throw it away! Look at this plastic window!  This is going to be the perfect aquarium for my American Girl Dolls!  I just have to get some string and make some fish and dangle them from the top of the box and paint the scenery.

And off she went with her box.  It’s still in progress.