A Little Extra Help.....

I was reading a post on the forums at Etsy yesterday about balancing small children and trying get a handmade business off the ground, that made me think of all the "Extra Help" we creative moms receive while trying to get our businesses off the ground.

 I am a mom of 3 of which only my third child is still small enough to present me with this challenge of "Extra Help".  My son is 4 with older sisters of 13 and 20 so he thinks he needs to "Help" mom all that he can.  I am sure there are many moms out there that can relate to this sort of "Help" from our loving, funny and some times frustrating children.

 While laying out my design for my "Storming Seas" necklace I received a lot of "Extra Help" from my little guy.  This design is based on the blue agate geode and how it reminded me of a stormy sea.  I proceeded to hunt for items to go along with this theme in my vast collection of vintage beads, gemstones and focals only to have my son decide that fresh water pearls make great balls to play with and he walked off with a least a quarter of my stock I had laid out for this design.  Then as I am just getting all of strand patterns laid out the phone rings, my darling husband while on lunch break from work....  Since my attention is now directed to my phone conversation my little guy decides mom's design is not to his liking and needs to be re-worked.  Now that I am off the phone and can come back to my design to start stringing, I find the bead board is in shambles with pearls everywhere, hematite, and glass beads sprinkled in here and there and the clasp no where to be found.  At this point I asked my son where the clasp has gone and he says it is taking a ride with Thomas the tank engine, via magnet on the engine tender.  And so the story continues... but in the end all his "Extra Help" did produce a pretty stunning work of wearable art, if I do say so myself.

I am sure many of you have received this sort of "Extra Help" from your child or children at one point or another.  I my opinion these are the times that are hard when they happen but funny or at least amusing much later and make our work and lives so much richer than those of  us who choose a different path in life.  So in the end it is a challenge to try and work through our schedules to do this sort of work with small children as the poster on the forum was stating but they are memories that are yours for a lifetime to relive and enjoy.

So in conclusion, should you wait until your child or children are grown to try and pursue your dreams, I guess it depends if you can handle the "Extra Help".  Can you use the "Extra Help"?