Before I could stop myself, it was out of my mouth…..”sure, I will volunteer in the kindergarten class”

Monday morning loomed and I considered over and over again what I should wear, what was the Mom’s dress code for school? I don’t wear tennis shoes and my purse is enormous, most of my shirts have low necklines and my jeans are too long for flats, what a problem to have.

I gulped down my morning coffee and then realized that maybe I should not have had any, as where were the bathrooms at school and what if I got lost on the way or couldn’t remember which door I came out of? Then I panicked a little knowing that it could be 2 o’clock until I get another cup. Do the staff rooms still reek of cigarette smoke and coffee like they did in my school days, 30 years ago? 

I decided on school colors of a red sweater and black pants (more suited to working at Target) with my black sensible nursing shoes, found a very small shoulder bag and stuffed my phone, lipstick and crackers into.

Parking the car for a quick getaway was next, and then signing into the school past the all knowing secretaries. They looked at me as if I really shouldn’t be there, but nodded towards the clipboard and then the sticker was on. There was no turning back!

The children all looked at me as I stepped onto the school yard , I got goosebumps and shuffled nervously. So much noise and screaming and movement…these kids moved with supersonic speed.

When the teacher spotted me it was with relief that someone older than 6 was available to talk to.

Throughout the day the noise continued and I was able to relax a little, but not let my guard down as the moment I did, a small girl ran behind me and slipped on the wet floor ,bumping her head. I took her to the nurse as the schools are paranoid, rightly so, about head injuries. She was just fine.

The little boys were making rude comments to each other, wandering around the classroom, spilling boxes of pencils and trying to cut each other with scissors. Picking their noses, going to the bathroom as often as they could get away with then washing their hands /playing in the water in the sink and letting it spill onto the floor, hence the head injury emergency above.

The little girls were singing their abc’s and comparing hair styles and nail polish colors.

Some of the children were kind to me as they knew I really didn’t look like one of them and two nice girls invited me to eat lunch with them. I declined to share in their juice boxes and cheesy puffs.

Green painted shamrocks and the paint everywhere, still more noise, and I was way too hot in my sweater, no coffee and it was only noon. I was watching the clock.

My own little boy felt compelled to jump up from his seat and run screaming around the classroom , pencil pointing up in the air. I tackled him to the ground with the teacher looking on with apparent admiration and awe, this was not the first time he had done this but she usually had to let him complete his lap as I wasn’t there. 

When 2 o’clock came I thanked the teacher for having me, and fled.

I don’t think I want to go back to school anymore.

 

 

My Disney mania continues, and whilst I should be packing the suitcases, being the somewhat distracted crafter that I am, I just had to make something else.

Little peasant dresses! I found a pattern and tutorial at onceuponasewingmachine.com and it was easy (once I realized that the old saying of measure twice, cut once is so very true!)

I scoured the fabric stores to find cute colors that represented the Disney ladies (this is my disclaimer that I did not make exact replicas so no calling me out, please),

These are to fit my almost 2 year old and only took 8 lines of sewing then elastic around the neck and arms. I chose to hand sew on embellishments (some little bows to cover my poor hand stitching). Cute, huh?

A funny story I’d like to share regarding my quest to find low cost  free lemons has ended in my neighborhood.

I was coming downstairs yesterday and I stopped mid tread as something caught my eye….fallen lemons in next doors yard!

Now you might think so what? BUT, these people let them rot on the ground with no respect to the beauty or versatility of this glorious yellow citrus fruit. It isn’t even their tree, they get them from the overhanging neighbors tree…how lucky is that?

I digress, the story, okay, so last summer I saw about 2 dozen just laying in their yard ,and so I knew the previous tenants of this house worked office hours, and the lemons had been there for DAYS. I went out into the back yard which has a shared fence and started playing ball with the kids ( No,you are right, I hate playing ball with the kids). I threw the ball a little too high and it went over the neighbors’ fence, oops!

I ran around and into their yard, scooped up as many lemons and launched them over the fence, into my yard and of course, retrieved the ball last.

The new tenants are home at all odd hours and so are thwarting my pursuit of ‘free’ lemons.

Yes , it would be easy to just go ask for them, but that would make me look weird, and I can’t have that!!