How To

WHAT I LEARNED YESTERDAY:

• How to get out of cleaning a preschool classroom:  Grab a toy cell phone and walk around looking very involved in your conversation. When the teacher calls your name and tells you to please put it away and help clean up, hold up your index finger and go "just a minute" and pace like mad while talking and ignoring the clean up in progress (or not).

• How to get out of anything science-y related to spiders (I'mma gonna 'member this one): A tarantula was on the playground (aka Daddy Longlegs) and my "Seriously?!" munchkin just had to show it to me. We crawled under a slide, looked at it, agreed it was creepy, and she promptly broke into a fit of achoo-ing. I looked at her like What?! and she says, "I'm allergic to spiders" and proceeded to sneeze her way across the playground.  I love that kid.

• How to sweet talk your teacher into not giving out so much work: It was a big scissor cutting art project in Pre-K yesterday (making Eric Carlesque kitty cats) and one of my favorite guys I was working with commented on "so much scissoring!" and the teacher, sitting across from us working with another student, agreed but started to tell him he was quite good at it... he interrupts and says, "it's okay, I still love you, ya know".  It worked on me - I cut his kitty cat tail for him.

• How to get Volun-told to risk your life in a huge thunderstorm and wade through a flash flood to save the day: Volun-teer to chaperone and then when they say they don't need you at the float building party tell them you're available for whatever they need.  Nothing like timing the lightning and thunder and running through ankle deep (no lie) water with 4 20x30 foam boards, zip ties, and white paint. Then I got to sit around for an hour watching lightning from the "safety" of the car while they worked. 

• How to survive being mom of the hour, after your son uses 95% of your cell battery: keep the engine running so you can charge your phone while playing WWF and Bejeweled and watching 100 kids and moms make similar mad dashes through the monsoon to their cars. Occasionally move your vehicle to jockey for better pick up when your freshman student finally emerges. Multitasking: It's a way of life.