Define Creativity...

Yikes! Here I am adding blogging to my already fairly frazzled life!  I'm not sure what I was thinking, except I keep hoping to do more writing and yet manage to find all kinds of reasons that it doesn't happen. The March Slice of Life Challenge seemed to spark some small hope that maybe I would be able to squeeze some writing in for one whole month. If I can do that, maybe I can find some way to get back on the exercise bandwagon, too!

Ever since I read about the challenge a few weeks ago, I have had at the back of my mind various ideas to write about. Tonight the one on my mind has to do with creativity, or the lack thereof. All of my growing up, I was the "school" child. I could memorize anything, had great handwriting, and never gave the teachers a difficult time (my parents, on the other hand, yes...). However, I never thought I had any creativity, and am not really a "crafty" person, although I like the idea of it. But as I was lamenting this fact to my sister (after seeing the amazing projects that my SECOND graders brought in the other day!), she told me that she thinks I have my mom's creative gene, and reminded me of various projects (most in the service of my own children or my classroom) that I have created, and usually on some kind of a deadline.

What I realized, after I thought about the bat costume for my son made out of a cut up old umbrella, the cow costume I made for my daughter with some felt pieces and spray adhesive, and my youngest son's homemade Club Penguin birthday cake, is that I am practically creative (in both the sense of "almost" and of "being practical")! I may not be the person who is able to come up with amazing and wondrous ideas right from my own head, but I can definitely take another idea I've seen and make it work for me (or more usually, my children!). It kind of gave me a glow for the whole day today.

Which is probably a good thing, considering I have to put my children to bed and then finish making 45 Rice Krispie bookworm treats to celebrate Read Across America and Dr. Seuss' birthday tomorrow with my second graders and our fifth grade reading buddies!