If You Give My Eight Year-Old a Piece of White Felt Glued to a Dowel

We decorated two tables for Reading Rocks this year, one of which was inspired by "If You Give a Cat a Cupcake." In the spirit of that book series, I present to you:

IF YOU GIVE MY EIGHT YEAR-OLD A PIECE OF WHITE FELT GLUED TO A DOWEL

If you give my eight year-old a piece of white felt glued to a dowel, and tell him that he is supposed to glue blue and red felt pieces to it to make an American flag (in keeping with the overall theme for this year's event, celebrating author Candace Fleming and her book, "Imogene's Last Stand"), he will notice that the blue felt has not yet been cut into squares and that the precut red felt strips come in a variety of sizes.

He will ask the facilitator of the craft room to cut him a blue felt rectangle instead of a square.  When she hands him the blue felt rectangle, he will glue it to the center of his white felt flag, and he will ask his mother for some of the white paper that he is supposed to cut stars from.

Because he does not recognize the concept of supposed to, he will tear the white paper into pieces and glue it, collage-style, to the blue felt rectangle.  He will superimpose the shape of a white cross over a white X.

When he is finished gluing white paper to his flag, he will glue red felt strips over the white paper, and announce, "DONE.  UNION JACK." 

Then he will ask to go to the book fair.  At the book fair, he will select no less than two Wookiee-themed books.  Because he is a boy.  He will also prevail upon his mother to buy him two young adult novels about dragons, a graphic novel about sharks and a glossy coffee table book titled "World's Worst Monsters and Villains."

His mother will acquiesce, because she is a boy mom.  Apparently, a fairly indulgent one.

Once he has obtained said books, he will want to look at them.  He will put his flag down on the table to allow the glue to dry, and he will spend fifteen minutes debating the relative merits of the cthulhu and the camazotz bat-monster, in terms of overall scariness.

When he is finished thinking about monsters, he will want to have his picture taken in the photo booth.  At first, he will want to pose behind the prop cannon.  But then his mom will ask him if he wants his (now-dry) flag, and she will offer to retrieve it for him. 

While his mom is retrieving the flag, he will have a thought. And when he returns, she will find him posed thusly:

In the stocks, like any good prisoner of war, or student of Revolutionary War history.

God, I love this kid.  Love spending Saturday mornings with him, enjoying literacy-centric events, and watching the way his brain works.

(By the way, points to whichever organizer figured out that foam pirate hats, if stapled together JUST so (with the skull and crossbones obscured within an interior fold), make excellent tricorns.  The casually dangled hat really makes the picture.)