"gonna get my glitter on"

A friend recently used the saying 'getting my glitter on' when talking about her 2yo and his Fathers Day creative genius... the saying made me giggle and I'm sitting here smiling thinking about it. As a mum to two 'creative' toddlers, I'd love to get my glitter on. I'd love to let monkey man and missy moo loose on the paint, crayon, chalk, pencils and textas but unfortunately I can't, you see I have an inability to let go,  I am in fact a control freak. When I was at school doing arts and crafts, trees were brown bark and branches with green leaves, skies were blue, clouds were white and grass was green, the sun was yellow, skin was pink and hair was blonde or brown and I never went outside the lines, ever ever ever. I'd love to say I won't try to instill that in my kids but reality bites and I'm sure I will and in fact already am. I wish I could switch it off although I will do my best not to instill that skin is pink - wouldn't want to be accused of teaching my kidlets racism. When we do arts and crafts now I find myself trying so hard to let go, to let them be free and it almost kills me to watch them painting themselves or each other rather than the paper or canvas. I try to watch and enjoy but I don't succeed very often. I look at their creations, bits and pieces stuck randomly to paper, paint everywhere, glitter, paint, sponges, felt all over themselves and the work surface and I cringe,  I cringe HARD....and find myself calculating how many days of napisan soaking will it take to restore their clothes but then I see their faces and the pride they clearly feel over their creations and I find a way to let go and embrace the mess. Much like learning to eat solids - OMG I have to go through that again with my newborn!!, I have to embrace the mess, and let go.... wish me luck, because I'm gonna get my glitter on!

Oh and someone told me a good way to 'keep' those precious pieces of art is to take a photo of them and create a photo book of their art rather than keep every single piece of macaroni/loo roll/glitter/tin foil artwork so I'm working on that too. Shame I'm trying to find the edit button on every piece of 'art'!!