Happy Valentines Day

I took Friday February 14th as a vacation day from work.

 

I know what you are thinking.  TMI Catherine, we don't want to know about how you had so many romantic plans for Valentines day that you couldn't fit them into one evening so you had to take the whole day.

 

No no no, it was not about being romantic, it was to help out with my son's kindergarten party at school.

 

Every weekday I get up around 6am and I drag myself into the shower.  I am always incredibly jealouse of my sleeping husband who manages to take up the whole bed and all the blankets as soon as I get up.  He gets to sleep in about an hour later than I do and it makes me almost hate him.  Friday I got to sleep in and it was my dream come true...at first.  Originally, I planned to spend the whole day at my son's school.  The teacher had planned a day long party that included counting to 100, pancakes, and wearing pajamas to school.  They were scheduled to do some valentine crafts and the teacher was looking for moms to help out.  Being the daughter of the perfect home room mother, I volunteered to help out all day and I volunteered to bring a few valentine crafts because I didn't want to get stuck with some impossible craft like the glitter fiasco of the Christmas class party.

 

The day before, we were notified that the teacher had been put on administrative leave.  That afternoon the school secretary called me to discuss the party.  She had heard that I was in charge of it.  She explained to me that the kids couldn't have a day long party with the sub because there was a lot of curriculum they had to cover.  IT WASN'T MY IDEA TO HAVE A DAY LONG PARTY!!  I was just trying to help.  Anyway, I agreed that it would be fine if they just had a little party in the afternoon and I could come in then.  Oh, also I accidentally hung up on the school secretary the first 3 times she called me because there is something wrong with my phone.  EMBARRASSING!

 

Because I no longer had to go into school right when it started, it made sense that I would take the girls to daycare and let my husband go to work a little bit early after dropping our son off at the bus stop.  This is what made me realize that my husband is a saint and I will no longer envy his extra hour of sleep.  Normally the hubby has to have the 5 year old ready for school, the 2 year old and the baby ready for daycare, and everyone into the car so they can be to the bus stop by 8:20.  It was hard enough for me to help get the 5 year old out the door in time, but the girls were impossible.  After breakfast the 2 year old was covered in chocolate (don't judge me about her having chocolate for breakfast) and the baby was crying because she was hungry.  Once I was done cleaning the chocolate face and feeding the baby a bottle, the 2 year old wanted to sit on the potty.  I never want to discourage her from using the potty, but I know she just wants to sit there so she can play her video game.  While she was on the potty (she didn't actually GO), I realized I had peanut butter all over my shirt.  Anyway, We didn't get out the door until almost 10:00.  I don't know how my husband does it.  He is magic.

 

Once I had the house to myself, I could think about the craft I was bringing to school.  My mom is a craft master, but it always bothered me that when she would do crafts for kids, she would practically do the whole thing for them ahead of time.  This would make me so mad because I was the kind of kid who wanted to tweak the project a little to make it my own.  Anyway, now that I am a mother, I understand a little bit more why she used to do that.  I had 3 projects in mind because I wasn't sure how much time there would be.  Most of them involved cutting things out and putting stickers on them.  There was the heart paper airplane, the heart made out of hands, and the heart with a cut out heart in the middle.  I was a little nervous that these might be too simple and boring.  I was so naive. 

 



 

 

 

When I got to the school, I quickly realized that there would only be time for one project.  I decided to go with the hand heart because that was the cleverest one.  That was a bad choice.  I had samples and I thought I explained it well.  I should have known I had made a mistake when the substitute teacher pointed out that they were not all good at cutting.  In my defense, 3 or 4 kids did figure out what I was trying to tell them and managed to make a heart out of their hands and put stickers on it.  As a giant point against me, my own son sat down on the floor crying because he didn't know what he was supposed to do.  Most of the kids managed to cut out something and put stickers on it even if it didn't resemble their hands or a heart.  Thank goodness I didn't decide to go with my original idea of a guitar made out of hearts or anything that requires glue.

 

Overall, I would say that this party experience was better than the Christmas party experience.  When we got home my son successfully completed all three of the projects I had prepared.  I think he was just a little overwhelmed.  Now, the only mystery left is to figure out why the teacher is on "Administrative Leave".  I really like the long term "guest teacher", but my curiosity about the original teacher is very strong.  Does "Administrative leave" mean waiting to be fired?  What are some reasons that teachers would be put on such a leave?