Kids' Craft Day at Home Depot
Written by Cindy Morgan
With a profound feeling of parental inadequacy I read my friend Stan’s monthly Facebook post. “It’s kids craft day at Home Depot tomorrow. They are making a snowman napkin holder.”
How is it, I wondered, that this dad has been taking his three kids (ages 8, 6 and 4) to Home Depot every month for years and I haven’t managed to get my two kids there once? When Stan posted his message this last time I checked our schedule and realized we had nothing going on: no sports, no parties, no trips, no parades nor fundraisers—nothing. Well, nothing except for their birthday—the day they had been anticipating for the past 364 days. I had a feeling that a Home Depot craft was not exactly the activity they had been envisioning for their tenth birthday.
I broke the news as gently as I could at dinner, and I nearly choked on a potato when my daughter shrugged and said,
“Well, these things usually work out O.K.” Where did this sudden maturity come from? It was like she was turning 25 instead of 10.
The new maturity had its downside: when the Home Depot employee handed them their child-sized Home Depot aprons the next morning they absolutely refused to put them on. We chose seats (in this case overturned orange buckets) at the long low plywood table that could have accommodated at least thirty people and got started.
Well, my son got started with my husband’s help, and I got started, but my daughter, she of the “these things usually work out O.K.” was having none of it. I did my best to be the good birthday mom spreading out the directions for her, reading them with her, getting the first pieces in place, when I really just wanted to scream,
“Just put the glue where it shows you in the picture!”
I kept wondering how Stan does this by himself with three kids. Three kids!
The Home Depot crafts are designed so that kids of all ages can
do them, but they are not the type of thing even a 10-year-old could execute well without some help. In fact I was so busy “helping” my daughter it took me a moment to realize she was content to have me build it for her. That’s when I decided that the just-turned-10-year-old child would learn to do things on her own and I put the pieces down.
This earned me a “look” and some complaining but I stood my ground. Once she discovered the power of tools (she was so intent on getting the screws in “all the way” I was afraid she was going to split the wood), she was that mature kid again, making sure the end pieces lined up precisely and there was no excess glue on her snowman’s hat.
When they were done assembling their snowmen we went off to find a new Christmas tree stand in the garden center. While I was deciding between stands my son spotted a tray of small potted cacti.
“Can I get one? Please, I have wanted one for months.”
Normally I am the mom who says “no” to every request posed to me in a store. But this was the moment when I could make birthday wishes come true.
“Sure, you can each pick one out for yourself.”
In the car on the way home they named their new “pets.”
“Mom,” my son told me, “Fluffy (the cactus) is the best present I got this year.”
What I Spent: $10 on two potted cacti—Fluffy and Priscilla (Queen of the Desert).
What They Learned: Screws go in “righty-tighty,” wood glue dries clear and while most people think Home Depot is for tools and building it is also the best pet store around
What I Learned: My kids are too old for Home Depot aprons but still young enough to think this outing and the pet cacti were the best part of their birthday.
Home Depot Kids Workshops are held the first Saturday of the month from 9am-12pm. Home Depot stores are located throughout Orange County—check their website for the store nearest you and call ahead to make sure they are holding the workshop. www.homedepot.com