Any western household with children under the age of ten has them. Those 6oz multi-colored plastic cups from Ikea that cost $1.99 for half a dozen. All the colors of the rainbow and practically indestructible. With matching plates and bowls to complete the Swedish dining experience. In our house they live in a drawer where busy little hands can get easy access in an attempt to be more self-sufficient and not ask mum all the time for drinks. Last week I realized that our collection wouldn't fit in the drawer and need to be purged. Besides, our kids are 8 and almost 6, and they don't need special tableware any more. So into the trash went some little plastic cups, some with faded Disney designs, some with indistinguishable logos and several personalized ones without their handles.
Some parents find it hard to throw away artwork. Others hang onto children's clothes they can't bear to part with. Many cannot donate toys because they remember who bought them for their child and feel guilty about it. I keep some special artwork and toss the rest. I have no problem donating clothes to my favorite charity which gives them directly to local kids in need, and I am more than happy to purge my kids rooms of the clutter and junk that stops them seeing what they actually have. I find it much harder to take away the everyday visual reminders that I connect with memories of my kids growing before my eyes. When we finally re-sanded our kitchen table last year I was almost tearful as we eliminated the paint splodges that pudgy little hands had once gleefully put where they should not have been. That unexplained lump of something under the table (could be yoghurt, could be Weetabix) remained from the challenges of learning to use a spoon. And as I dropped the tatty cups with Thomas, Pooh Bear and the Little Einsteins into the trash, I certainly paused for a moment. Remembering how they smiled when we found these treasures in the $1 section at Target and had to hold them in the mini-van on the way home they were so excited.
I've written before about how we enter into different era's with our kids. (See my post 'Five Year Plan'). Right now I'm finding my self in the 'Parents need to be fully involved' era with my kindergartner and 2nd grader. My eldest is taking part in a local children's theater production and at the information meeting I was presented with a list of volunteer choices to help get the production running. Whilst silently yelling in my brain 'hey I'm paying for this why do I have to help' I scribbled a choice and hoped the sheet would get lost. Instead, I spent three hours last week in a basement studio sanding and painting scenery and actually having a really great time.
I turned up for duty in my painting gear. A 12-year old freebie t-shirt covered in a rainbow of paint colors and a pair of yoga pants in pretty much the same condition. (Stretchy waist bands always make it easier to paint!). The woman in charge of the scenery was wearing the same kind of outfit. She greeted me with a 'hey, you look really experienced' and smiled. About to reply in my usual self-deprecating fashion (I've-never-done-this-before-but-I-can't-sew-costumes-and-don't-want-to-sell-ice-cream-on-the-night) I stopped myself. 'I've done a fair amount of painting' I said, and off we went to basement-land under the theater.
In that moment, I realized that I was wearing my technicolor t-shirt of the last decade of my life. Sure, I wear it only once or twice a year when there's a mini-makeover needed in a part of our aging home. But there's so much to say about the colors that fell on to it when I mixed, rollered, touched-up and wiped my hands on each job.
The pale yellow held the mystery and expectancy of our our first child. Not knowing whether a boy or girl, we painted a sunny little room and filled it with jungle animals ready for their arrival. The pink and purple heralded her growth into preschooler and then Kindergartner as she left her baby days, and the lions and giraffes, behind her.
The lilac brightened a dreary old kitchen made bigger after a big renovation. I remember being nauseous whilst painting in the early days of my second pregnancy. The grey-ish blue took away the hand prints and crayon scars of early childhood when we repainted last year. Just in time for me to turn forty.
The three greens (lime, celery and emerald) belie the trickiness of painting the tiny downstairs bathroom. The most painted room in Boston, (as my friend Sarah calls it) is also responsible for pulled muscles and back aches when we twisted and maneuvered our brushes.
Gold made our living room warm. Heavily pregnant, I did what I could to help get the room finished and managed to huff and puff my way through the project. Two weeks later I sat dazed in the room after our daughter arrived early. Obviously she wanted to see what all the fuss was about.
Orange. The color that should never have been used in the bathroom. Ever.
The Egyptian pyramids, palm trees and River Nile that I painted on a backdrop for a journey through the story of Joseph for a church camp. One of the most fun, rewarding, and exhausting weeks of my life are present as sand, bright green and cool blue.
And there's many more colors with many more stories. But I won't throw that t-shirt away because it shows life in all it's glorious color. And if life with kids isn't colorful, then it's dull. And I certainly don't want it to be like that. There's no gray to be seen.
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