Blue Ribbon for Hoarding

I was in 4-H for many years.  I loved it.  Well, most of it.  I loved the people, the milk stand at the county fair, learning obscure songs like “Cheeseburger in Paradise” at Arts-In, Donna Gregory's cookies when it was her family's turn to host our monthly meetings, and the feeling of winning ribbons on my projects!  What I didn't love - having to actually do the projects. 

Although I'd come up with ideas for projects far in advance, I never usually got around to actually doing them until the weeks (sometimes week) before the fair.  And since my siblings who were also in 4-H had the same procrastination problem, it was often a stressed out household that week!  But we managed, and occasionally I even managed to pull off a decent project too.  I only got a red ribbon once or twice (the second best color), and otherwise got blue ribbons (the best color); I even got a few purple ribbons (the best-of-the-best color).  But despite the ribbon color, let's face it, none of them was really all that great of a project.  My junior-high quality often lacked luster, they were thrown together at the last minute, and though I thought I knew it all at the time, as time has passed I see how many of those "wow, this is so creative and smart" ideas come up a bit short in reality. 

And yet, for some reason, great or not, quite a few of these projects have been held onto for years.  I have a shadow box collage I made one year, even though the frame is broken.  I have the paper "books" I made by cutting pictures out of magazines and binding them at Kinkos.  I have the illustrated alphabet blocks I painted and put in an appliqued bag that's now falling apart (did you know that N is for "Nothing" and O is for “On/Off”?)  I have the binder with my "how I care for my cat as if I'm a professional veterinary assistant already" project (can't throw that one out - it won me a purple state fair ribbon - that's the best-of-the-best-of-the-best color!)  I even recently asked my mother if I could take back the quilt squares I framed one year that have hung nicely on her upstairs wall, despite the fact that I don’t have a nice wall space of my own for them to hang.  The more I think about it, the more I realize I'm a bit of a hoarder.  I don't know why I've kept so many of these things, or why I continue to despite numerous moves and near generations since they were first done.  Or at least I didn't…until last week. 

Last week my hoarding paid off.  My son pulled something off the bookshelf and started talking to me about the "cloth elephant."  I soon realized he had one of the pieces of a cloth activity book I had made for 4-H one year.  So I sat down with him, opened the accordion-fold book all the way up, and we spent a half an hour or so playing with it.  You can tuck the lion and elephant in pockets behind cloth rocks and the turtle in the pond.  You can move the velcro numbered-coconuts from the tree to the ground as you count.  You can braid the lion's tail.  You can zip the hut open and shut as you take the person out.  You can button and un-button the flowers.  And had I not lost the moon somewhere along the lines these past 15 or more years, you could have changed out the sun at "nighttime."  Although the black and white plaid rocks were a bit confusing, the Flintstones-looking jungle person seemed to have both a time-era and a gender identity crisis, and the words that I'd embroidered quite crookedly were hard to make out, I was actually quite impressed with my clever little book.  Why?  Because my son loved it!  My son loves books, but this one meant a whole new realm of adventures and learning for him.  And to get my two-year old son, even my son the book-lover, to sit still for 30 whole minutes, was like a miracle!

And for me the real miracle was getting to spend that much time just being with him discovering, learning, teaching and getting excited when he accomplished something new (Adrian had never done a button himself before)!  That time, and the joy it brought to both of us, made all my hoarding finally pay off.  It did more than that – it made my years of last-minute-throw-things-together-beg-mom-to-take-me-to-the-store-to-get-the-supplies-I-didn't-know-I-needed-because-I-didn't-plan-ahead-and-am-now-really-crabby-because-I-was-up-all-night-working-on-it 4-H projects worth it!  And while I don't know if my mother would agree to that (it was a lot of store-runs after all), I know.  I know it's worth it.  It's all worth it, to watch someone explore and learn, and get excited to do such.  To watch someone feel so proud when they accomplished something new and good. To watch them discover!

OK...so maybe my mother would agree with that.  I'm guessing that's the only reason she put up with all the last-minute-throw-things-together-beg-her-to-take-us-to-the-store-to-get-the-supplies-we-didn't-know-we-needed-because-we-didn't-plan-ahead-and-are-now-really-crabby-because-we-were-up-all-night-working-on-it 4-H projects in our household.  Just to watch us discover. 

And although that wasn't my motivation at the time, I am now quite grateful for those years and those projects and the discovery they allowed me.  I'm grateful to my parents for not only putting up with it, but encouraging it.  And I'm grateful to myself for being a hoarder.  I still don't know why I kept so many of these projects originally, but it has suddenly become very clear to me why I hoard them - just in case.  Just in case a moment like this would present itself someday.  And I hope it does again! 

But in the meantime, I award a Blue Ribbon for hoarding.  And a blue ribbon for 4-H.  And a great big special PURPLE RIBBON for my old cloth book and the joy of discovery it brought to me and my son!