Dinnertime Grace

It's dinnertime and I'm gearing up to make lasagna while my 6-year-old, Grace, sits at the kitchen table pondering a discarded paper towel roll. Surrounded by a posse of Barbies, stacks of coloring books, and a LeapPad, she chooses to play with something fished from the recycling bin. Go figure.

"Mama, can I have some tape?" she asks a few minutes later. This request is followed shortly by another for wrapping paper and scissors.

"Mama, can I have four napkins – not paper, the cloth kind?" she asks and I take a break from my sauce to retrieve some from the drawer.

The "I'm doing a special project and I want it to be a surprise" vibe is palpable in the room so, as curious as I am, I feign disinterest.

Meanwhile Grace is in full-blown craft mode — she's hunched over the table, elbows akimbo as she works the scissors and tears tape from the dispenser.

The suspense is killing me, but just when I feel like I'm going to breach the unspoken sanctity of the "secret project zone," I hear Grace say triumphantly, "There. I'm done."

"Come look what I made, Mama," she says.

I walk over and see that she's created napkin rings by cutting the paper towel roll into little segments, then covering each with the wrapping paper and securing it with tape.

"Wow! These are great," I say. "What a creative idea, Grace."

"Thanks, Mama," she says with a huge smile.

I'm practically bursting with pride at the ingenuity and creativity of my mini-Martha Stewart. Now we're going to make homemade onion print place mats to round out the decor – but the star of the table will be the napkin rings Grace came up with all on her own.