This morning during Hazel’s nap I sat down at the dining room table with a big box of Helveticards and a long list of international shipping addresses.
I wasn’t necessarily looking forward to the tedious task of hand-writing all of the addresses onto little green customs forms, but the playing cards Ryan designed have been getting a lot of attention in the design community lately (so, so proud of him!) and I like to keep on top of all of the orders.
Not long into my efforts, Oliver wandered into the dining room announcing that he was “bored”. I quickly surveyed the 100+ orders I had ahead of me and ascertained that a good amount of it was 4-year-old friendly.
First, I let him get to work filling domestic orders. He stuffed decks of cards into envelopes, peeled up the white strip and sealed them up all on his own. Very fun and very important!
When it was time to move on to the international orders, things moved a bit more slowly because of the extra steps so I ran upstairs and grabbed his Tag pen
and map
and as I scrawled addresses onto customs forms, his job was to locate on the map where each deck of cards would end up.
and map and as I scrawled addresses onto customs forms, his job was to locate on the map where each deck of cards would end up.
He got quite a kick out of the fact that a man in Australia wanted us to send him a deck of Daddy’s cards. It made him giggle out loud to think that the deck of cards he was holding in his hands would be across the world in just a few days.
We found Belgium on the map, Canada, Hong Kong, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, France, United Kingdom, Sweden and even Russia. It cracked him up that there was a country called “Turkey” and that Germany sounded like it had a lot of germs.
(Also, Ryan came home for lunch and cemented for me the fact that Switzerland and Sweden are completely different places. I’m a smart girl, but geography’s just not my thing. The Swiss are from Switzerland, and if you’re from Sweden, you’re Swedish. Got it. How embarrassing. )
Inviting your young child to help you with most household tasks usually means it will take more time and more patience than simply doing it yourself. But today, my child actually helped me complete a big task – and we did it faster (and had more fun!) than if I had done it alone. We knocked it out!
I love it that Oliver is getting to an age where his skills and personality and presence are more than a just a sweet addition to family life – they’re useful and funny and far more kid-like than baby-like. He’s growing up! I think I’m really going to enjoy this stage!
>What an awesome Mommy you are! I didn't realize you could use the tag pen on a map…totally going to look into that!
>Oh, haha, I feel completely justified in making fun of you for the Sweden/Switzerland discovery. Tehe! (In all fairness: My children beat my bottom at geography. Charlotte knows all of the Eastern European Soviet block countries, for heaven's sake.)
You did a great job involving him. It's so hard sometimes when there are things to be done, and you made him an important part of the process. Fun mom!
cones!
>Fabulous lesson! I had no idea that there was a map to go with the Tag Pen…my 5 year old would LOVE that, thanks for sharing so I could be alerted to this wonderful thing!
>So, so sweet. You are such a good mommy. I am so not good with geography either! :)
>You ROCK! How cool are you?
>wow. you are such a role model for me, raechel. i probably would've popped in a movie of turned on the TV so I could work more quickly, but I have to say I'll remember this idea in the long run. :)
>that is awesome, and he is so cute!! What a great way to bond together and for him to feel so important :)
>i do the same thing with denmark and germany. at least your countries sound the same…i'm still trying to come up with an excuse for me. :)
>helveticadillacs, anyone? care for some helveticaviar? gotta hate on you for the sweden/switzerland mixup, but even with that thrown in my love still abounds. could have been worse…swaziland? refreshing my way to your 1 millionth!
>Hi Rachel,
How cool and inspirational!
What kind of cards are the helveticards?
>Linda,
They're playing cards/face cards designed around the Swiss font, Helvetica. You can see an image of the face of the cards here: http://helveticards.uberdm.com/