This blog was originally published as a post on my Instagram account @NadiazArtistry and can be accessed at this link.

 

There comes a point in every Mama’s life when she must decide just how much of her kids art she can keep. I mean I am happy my children enjoy drawing as I do. My problem is with the sheer volume of paper and the insistence on keeping all of it. Just how many drawings of a stick thin mama with wiry hair and terrifying smile does one need? And It’s not that I haven’t tried to secretly dispose of them. It's just that I have gotten caught every single time.

Once ,I ripped some drawings into oblivion and threw them in the garbage only to have my little monkey find a teeny tiny piece that fell out. Cue excessive indignation courtesy of my 5 year old. Another time I strategically placed the drawings below the top layer of garbage so they wouldn’t see. I mean it’s not like my kids actually use the garbage to throw anything in anyway. But of course, as luck would have it I got caught again. Cue excessive indignation courtesy of my 5 year old. So I came up with the perfect plan.

I would wait till it was garbage collection day , load my kids into their school bus and then throw all that God forsaken paper in the recycling and be done with it. And I did just that. Except… if you’ve learnt anything about me is that lady luck doesn't exactly like me. It happened to be a windy day and in my hurry I forgot to cover the lid of the recycling. Unbeknownst to me the wind blew all that horrid paper right in front of the bus stop. And as my kids jumped off the bus end of day they picked up the paper and handed it to their mortified mama. Cue excessive indignation on behalf of my 5 and 8 year old.

To add insult to the injury, the drawings looked like they had been chewed and stomped on by a dog. I then spent the next 20 minutes in freezing weather gathering all that wretched paper from under trees and bushes much to my neighbors’ amusement. Ever stepped into an Evergreen Tree that hasn’t been trimmed in forever? Don’t. But even though that treacherous paper is gone, the motherly guilt has stayed. Guilt is a funny thing. It chews you up from the inside and spits you out in the most unrelenting way. Please tell me I’m not the only one who has tried to dispose of her kids art 🤣.