Pile O' Art

See that, up there?

It’s a little glimpse into my personal shame. My child’s lovingly created art is all stashed in a pile, inside one of our kitchen cabinets.

Alright, alright. I’m not being 100% honest. The truth of the matter is that H is not much of an art guy, and very little of what he brings home falls into the category of lovingly created. He occasionally brings home a piece he’s especially proud of, but mostly he hands it to me and says something along the lines of, “We made that today. Put it with the rest of my stuff.” And he never mentions it again.

The thing is, though, I’m the mama. I’m supposed to ooh and ahh (and I do, I promise) and frame it, display it, show it to unsuspecting visitors to our home. And then? I’m supposed to scrapbook it and preserve it for ever more.

Shame, I tell you.

I’m not a saver. I’m the anti-hoarder. If something doesn’t have a logical home, I trash it or donate it.

Except for the art. And a bunch of broken lift-the-flap and pop-up books that I keep saying I’m going to repair. Oh, and my cache of picture frames and pictures that I swear I’m going to turn into a gallery wall. Except for those things, I’m an anti-hoarder.

My natural tendency is to trash this preschool art. I squash that tendency, and I stash it instead. I stash it with good intentions to lovingly preserve it, so I can prove to my adult children that I was a suitable mother. When they’re in therapy, trying to pin it all on me, I can whip out my scrapbook-o-art and say, “See! I saved it all, even this one that looks like a butt or two loaves of bread? What is this?”

Up until now I’ve photographed H’s art a couple times each year. I lay it all out, take a picture, and then trash all but a few extra special pieces. The photos are saved in my computer files, mocking me for not being a scrapbooking mama.

Enter, AboutOne, my new best friend. AboutOne is a one-stop shop for organizing your family. It’s a way to save all of your important data and memories. I am in love with this concept, and therefore pretty darn excited to be an AboutOne Mom Panelist. Over the next year, as part of my panelist role, I will be telling you about all the ways AboutOne is making me more organized. And we will start with: Art.

I mean really, for a formerly-extremely-organized-Type-A-neat-freak-turned-frazzled-mother, this product is a dream. Even if you never were neurotic, even if you never dreamed of Martha Stewart levels of organization, even if you’re a slob at heart, you can still fall in love with AboutOne.

The moral here? Don’t tune out on these posts just because you’re either:

If nothing else, you’re going to get some glimpses into my secret disorderedness. Who doesn’t love to snoop?

As for my art project, I have whittled that obnoxious pile down to this:

Post-Whittle

Next up, I’m going to add it all to H’s file on AboutOne and create scrapbook pages. Me. Scrapbook pages. Whhheeee. I’m going to win some major mom points. Granted, I have sons, who may never look at these pages. Perhaps their wives or children will care? Someone, someday will care. Even if it’s just me, in my addled years, looking back over their sweet, tiny hand prints and stick figure drawings of our family.

Sniff.

Thank you AboutOne, for helping me make this happen. Finally.

I wonder…

:: How do you preserve the bazillions of pieces of precious art that come home from preschool?

:: Do you have aspirations for your family, for your organization, that you just can’t achieve? Why?

:: Have you ever visited the AboutOne site? How do you think it would be useful for getting your family organized?

DON’T GO YET!

Sorry for shouting, but I have a little something more for today. It’s Blogroll Schmogroll day, people.

Since it’s an all about AboutOne kind of day, I’m doing an AboutOne-themed Blogroll Schmogroll. Please go meet the other mom panelists: The Mom Panelists.

And be sure to check out the AboutOne blog, too.

Now you may go. Enjoy your day.