Kids find satisfaction in creating gifts for father

Lynn Doan

Friday, June 18, 2004 | 3:45 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

June 19 - 20, 2004

The Las Vegas Leisure Services Department is holding a Father's Day cookie bake at noon today at Gibson Community School, 3990 W. Washington Ave. Cost is $5. Call (702) 229-5096 for more information.

Three-year-old Sarah Roeper said her dad's favorite color is brown.

That's why she glued dozens of brown paper strips right on top of the painting of her footprints.

"Look," Sarah said, proudly holding with glue-covered fingers the Father's Day gift she made at a Las Vegas Leisure Services arts and crafts workshop Thursday at Cadwallader Community School.

"Sarah! Now, you've covered all of your footprints," her mother, Teresa Roeper, said. But Roeper had bigger problems.

Sarah's twin, Andrew, had suddenly lost interest in arts and crafts and was rummaging through his mother's purse for money. Meanwhile, her oldest son, Nicholas, 5, screamed for more blue strips of paper.

"I wanted something unique to give my husband for Father's Day," Roeper, a Las Vegas resident, said. "But this is just chaotic."

A few lucky Las Vegas dads of the dozen children who attended will be receiving framed pictures of their children's footprints for Father's Day -- the planned craft of the day. But most of the fathers will be hanging up pictures of paper strips, footprints that somehow turned into deer heads and, from one child, perhaps an empty bag of Chex Mix, instead.

Irene McKeaney, a city recreation leader, said arts and crafts workshops such as the Father's Day event can get hectic. But ultimately, she said, the children come out with a sense of pride from the art they've created, regardless of the outcome.

Mothers come out prouder of their children.

"They've pretty much done all this on their own," said Roeper, as her daughter raised a paint-splattered foot to show which one created the art. "Then they decorated their feet by themselves," she said, interrupting herself as she noticed her 3-year-old son's newest acquisition.

"Oh my gosh, where'd you get that dollar?"

Roeper bolted to a nearby vending machine, where Andrew was in the process of jamming a dollar bill into the coin slot. The child reacted with toddler screams, which his mother soothed with a bag of Chex Mix. Then the boy settled down to work on his painting.

"They're really proud when they're able to make something by themselves for their dad," said Jill Chambers, who brought her son, Jakob, 7, and daughter, Jordan, 4, to the workshop. "This is more for them than for him, but he will definitely like the pictures."

"Mom, how do you make a deer again? I forget," asked Jakob, who wanted to make his dad more than just a footprint for Father's Day. He used one of his footprints as the deer's face and traced his sister's hands onto paper to cut out as antlers.

Jakob said he guessed it would be all right if his dad wanted to hang the picture up in his office.

Jordan, who Chambers said is more of an artist, settled for drawing characters around her footprints. She held a pencil in her fist and slowly marked the letters I, L and U into a corner of her painting.

"You see? It means I love you," she explained. "But how do you spell dad?"

Chambers said she came across the Father's Day workshop while looking for city-sponsored activities that would keep her children busy during the summer.

The workshop is just one of many Father's Day activities planned by the city. McKeaney said that Cadwallader is also planning a father-daughter dance for the near future, and Gibson Community School will be helping children bake cookies today for Father's Day.

To cover costs for materials, parents pay $10 to register for workshops, which Chambers said is reasonable considering how much fun they are for her children.

Finally, after writing her name across the center of her painting, Jordan was done.

She said she made the gift for her father because she loves him "this much," extending one arm to her side.

"Wait, no, it's more than that," she said.