Yet another reason why sugar makes everything better

Easton had to make a diorama for Science. Which really meant that we BOTH had to make a diorama for Science. I really struggled with this. How much should I do? There is no way he could do it all on his own, but is he really learning anything if he just sits and watches while mom does all of the grunt work? Knowing that it would not be the most spectacular end product, I went with the idea that he would do 80% of the work, and I would just help with the small details. So we sat down and researched together (needed to make a Desert) and got to work. I bought the supplies and he did a great job at cutting and gluing everything to the shoebox. For animals we used playdough and he made them all by himself. Again, there were no lights and sound effects, but HE did it and HE was actually digesting the information. Woo Hoo! As we were finishing up last night, he (not using a whining voice, so I know he's serious and has thought on this a while) says, "Mom, I hope no one laughs at my project. No one else made their animals with playdough - they all have 'real' animals". Well now I feel like the worst mother in the world. My child is going to be ridiculed for his playdough jack rabbit because I was too stubborn to pick up the elaborate pack of desert animal figurines at Michael's. (By the way, did you know you could by an entire Desert diorama kit at Michaels for $24.99?) So I probed...what do some of the other boxes look like? At this point he has only seen the kids who turned their projects in early (overachievers) and he gives me descriptions of glitter and fur and extravagant things. (They could pick a variety of landscapes including Desert, Ocean, Rainforest, etc). And in a flash of brilliance I had an idea. We used brown foamy paper for the "sand" of our desert. But wait! What else looks like sand? Aha. BROWN SUGAR. So I proposed to Easton that we dump all of Mommy's brown sugar in the bottom of his diorama to look like sand, and have the animals sitting in and amongst the sand. No kidding, he did a little happy dance right there. Because no one else from his class had anything like that!

Whew.

I'm sure I'll get the full report today after school.