Death by Chocolate

Every December, my elementary school's PTA hosts a holiday basket auction. Each classroom in the school is assigned a basket theme, a disproportionate number of which include the word "Italy" (ie. "A Night out in Italy," "Breakfast in Italy," "Under the Tuscan Sun"). My daughter's teacher was one of the unfortunate few who were absent on the day that the lots were cast. As a result, she got stuck with a theme that lacks any overt reference to the Motherland.

"Our theme is 'Death by Chocolate,'" she apologized.

I attempted to alleviate the teacher's feelings of failure and ancestral shame by suggesting that we fill the basket with Italian chocolates. The letter I mailed to my daughter's classmates' parents asking for donations reiterated this request.

My plea for assistance was heard and answered. Here is what was sent in:


As room mother, my job is to tastefully assemble the donations in a large basket. The baskets will be auctioned off at the annual holiday family dance next weekend.

For several reasons, I am expecting that my basket will draw a record number of bids.

****
Any similar tales of agony?

Peel-and-Stick Laminate

Later this week is the annual First Grade Pirate Party at my kids' elementary school. A few weeks ago, I sent a note to the event coordinator volunteering to help decorate the gym. The note I received in reply thanked me for my willingness to come up with six pirate-themed reading games instead.

Usually I am against bait-and-switch routines, but I agreed to fall victim to this one after my friend Tina hinted that such acts of martyrdom might be recognized at the end of the year assembly in the form of a plaque or large trophy.

What initially appeared to be a manageable assignment was made infinitely more difficult by the friendly reminder that none of my pirate games could include weapons, water balloon launchers, allusions to alcohol, or choking hazards.

"I have nothing," I told my husband, throwing up my hands in defeat.

"Why don't you make a memory game using pirate words?" he suggested.

My husband's idea made me want to poke my eyes out, but I went through with it because it provided me with a legitimate reason to purchase a roll of peel-and-stick laminate.

If I was taught nothing else by this experience, I learned that laminate is underused in higher education. College professors should use it more often: it makes things look more impressive and official. The clip art treasure chests that I printed off the Internet gained instant credibility once I covered them with a see-through layer of plastic film.

I showed my husband the finished products.

He wrinkled his nose. "Aren't you going to laminate the poster board too?" he wanted to know.

That wasn't part of my original plan, but once he made the suggestion, it became a necessity.

Laminating such a large surface proved to be almost more fun than I could handle. Despite (or perhaps due to) numerous attempts to lay the poster board flat on the sticky paper, the finished product was plagued with several air bubbles and large creases, attributes I tried to obscure when I dropped the items off at the event organizer's house on Saturday.

The Offender

"My, what happened here?" the woman said, peering at the poster board. "Are those carpet fibers?" she asked, pointing to a cluster of beige clumps in the middle of the sign.

I explained the limitations of DIY laminate to no avail.

"Hmm," the woman said with an amused smile. "You should have done your laminating over here." She pointed to an object in the corner of her living room, which she identified as her personal laminating machine.

I have never wanted anything more in my entire life. Now I know what to put on my Christmas list.

"Feel free to re-laminate to your heart's content," I said as I walked out the door. The woman threw back her head and laughed like I had just told the funniest joke in the world.

A few choice words ran briskly through my mind as I got into my car, but just as quickly as they came, my feelings of hostility gave way to feelings of compassion.

All I had to do was come up with six games. The event organizer is responsible for producing a pirate-themed snack. My heart goes out to the person who will be spending the better part of the next three days suspending small schools of Swedish fish into 137 cups of blue JELL-O.

****
ARGH! In my haste to rid myself of the cursed poster board, I forgot to take a picture of the finished product. You'll just have to imagine its awesomeness.

Parent-Teacher Conferences

This afternoon, my husband and I have meetings scheduled with Cortlen and Kellen's kindergarten teachers. I wasn't worried about the kind of report cards that my children would receive until several neighbors (who have children in my boys' classes) went out of their way to provide me with unsolicited play-by-play rundowns of their own parent-teacher conferences. I had no idea that Stephen Hawking was once our neighborhood's mailman.

Everything was straight gold stars, double thumbs up, and green traffic lights. One precocious girl even interacts with her peers on a third-grade level. That is what her mother told me at the bus stop this morning. The woman was wearing a jogging suit and new white sneakers. I was wearing one brown sock and one black.

"Your gene pool is a little shallow," I told my boys over lunch. They cocked their heads and looked confused.

"And we moved into this neighborhood after the smart mailman left," I explained.

Abe & Me

I have come to realize that Abraham Lincoln and I have a lot in common. Despite being faced with tremendous adversity, we never gave up.


ABE

• 1831 - Lost his job
• 1832 - Defeated in run for Illinois State Legislature
• 1833 - Failed in business
• 1834 - Elected to Illinois State Legislature (success)
• 1835 - Sweetheart died
• 1836 - Had nervous breakdown
• 1838 - Defeated in run for Illinois House Speaker
• 1843 - Defeated in run for nomination for U.S. Congress
• 1846 - Elected to Congress (success)
• 1848 - Lost re-nomination
• 1849 - Rejected for land officer position
• 1854 - Defeated in run for U.S. Senate
• 1856 - Defeated in run for nomination for Vice President
• 1858 - Again defeated in run for U.S. Senate
• 1860 - Elected President of the United States of America (success)

Me

• 2006- Submitted application to be preschool class mom and rejected

• 2007- Submitted another application to be preschool class mom and rejected

• 2008- Applied to be daughter’s kindergarten room parent and rejected

• Winter 2008- Allowed to bring party favors to boys’ preschool holiday party (success)

• Spring 2009- Brought a plate of brownies to preschool graduation and instructed by sister to leave them in the car (lost the will to live)

• Spring 2009- Learned that all room moms at my daughter’s elementary school have hand-eye coordination, good people skills, and a label maker machine (cry myself to sleep)

• Summer 2009- Gifted 10 boxes of National Geographic magazines and a bag of miscellaneous colored yarn from a neighbor who is cleaning out her basement (hope restored)

• September 2009- Applied to be daughter’s first grade room mom. Implied (falsely) on my application that I own a Cricut machine and can play the harmonica.

• September 21, 2009- Appointed room parent of my daughter's class (my cup overfloweth with joy and gratitude and three-dimensional stickers)

******

Irrelevant side note:

• September 22, 2009- Learned through the grapevine that I was the only applicant.

Beast Quest

My daughter had a bone to pick with me when she got off the school bus yesterday afternoon.
"You didn't give me any money for the Book Fair!" she shrieked.

I feigned surprise and apologized for my forgetfulness. In reality, there was no way that I was handing over ten hard-earned dollars to someone whose literary interests are limited to non age-appropriate chapter books with Michelle Tanner on the front covers. Every Wednesday, Camber's kindergarten class goes to the library, and every week my daughter brings home a different gem from the "Full House" easy reader series. Since my daughter can't read the books and refuses to let me read them to her, each book sits on the bookshelf in the family room until the following week, when "Michelle gets a puppy!" is exchanged for "Michelle goes out for the team!" and so on.




Taking the place of this week's trip to the library was a trip to the auditorium, where students were encouraged to pay for books that they normally could borrow for free. Discovering that the Full House Series has been out of print since 1998--and is thus unavailable for purchase--sent my daughter into a tizzy, or so it was reported to me by a friend who was working at the book fair. Learning that her horrible mother failed to set up a prepaid account with the Book Fair coordinators understandably sent my precious darling over the edge.

"I was the only person in my whole class who didn't have money!" she yelped.

I learned from my friend that this was a slight misrepresentation of the truth: only one child in the class brought money from home. The other 18 children whose parents don't love them were forced to join my daughter in the hideously awful task of making a "wish list."

Camber's list included a lot of good reads, but the one that piqued my interest the most was number 3: Beast Quest.


"Why did you pick this book?" I asked my daughter.

She responded by putting her fingers in her ears.

On her way to time-out, I gave her another chance to answer. She chose not to, but it didn't really matter because I already knew the answer: one finds comfort in the familiar.