Last winter, I pressed my hand next to my daughter’s on a sheet of white paper. Her hand looked tiny beside mine. I stared at it longer than I meant to. Then we tilted our hands toward each other. The two prints made a heart. She giggled and said, “That’s us.” That paper now hangs…
Last spring, my niece stared at a big letter C on the table. She said it looked like a banana. Then she tilted her head and gasped. “It’s a caterpillar!” she said. We grabbed green paper and started gluing. Ten minutes later, her C was crawling across the page. She traced it with her finger,…
Last fall, I set a big paper C in front of my neighbor’s daughter. She tilted her head. “It looks like a cat taking a nap,” she said. She was right. The curve was a round back. One end was a sleepy head. The other end was a tail. We grabbed orange paper and got…
Ava is five, and her first pineapple looked like a yellow lemon. She stared at it and said, “It’s a sad lemon.” I laughed, and then I clipped it to a string anyway. By the end of the day, the lemon had five friends. Together they made a tiny banner over her bed. That is…
Leo is four, and he treats every craft like a pet. When we finished our first alligator, he held it up and announced, “He’s hungry.” Then he refused to put it down. He fed it crayons, a sock, and half my grocery list. I had planned a flat handprint. Instead, I got a roommate with…
On Mia’s first Valentine’s Day, she was one. I pressed her red-painted hand to paper, and she wiggled like a fish. The print looked like a tomato that had lost a fight. I almost threw it out. Instead, I wrote the date on the back and kept it. The next year, at age two, she…
Last December, I asked my four-year-old niece a simple question. “What makes you happy?” She thought for a second. Then she said, “When the dog sneezes.” I laughed so hard that I wrote it on the back of my hand. I wanted to save that moment forever. That night, I made my first joy handprint…
Last spring, I planned letter D week for my homeschool co-op. I wanted a display that felt special. A worksheet would not do. Then my nephew pressed his muddy hand on the patio and shouted, “Look, a duck!” He was right. I turned that happy accident into this d is for duck handprint craft. Each…
My son hung his nose over the edge of the pet store tank and whispered, “Can I touch him?” The goldfish flicked its tail and zoomed away. He giggled. At home that afternoon, rain tapped the window, so I pulled out orange paint and blue paper. One painted palm later, a little hand pressed down…
“Mama, why does my hand look like a tree?” My daughter held up her brown palm, fingers wide, and studied it like a scientist. The rain was tapping the window. Our tea had gone cold. I told her to press it down on the paper and see what happened. She did, and we both leaned…
Last winter, the first snow came down on a quiet Saturday, and my little one pressed her nose to the window. School was closed. The cocoa was warm. So I pulled out white paint and a blue paper circle. One painted palm later, a small hand pressed down in the middle of the “glass.” Then…
One cold Saturday morning, my little one wiggled on the kitchen chair while I painted a green palm. The cookies were cooling on the counter. A small hand pressed down on white cardstock, and we waited. Then I drew two pointy ears and a smile under the hat. She laughed so hard she nearly fell…