Mine was the cleanest in the whole class

Yesterday, as Luke’s class Room Mother, I got to spend 3 hours in his class making Halloween T-shirts for them to wear on Friday. Trust me – a picture will follow once he brings home his dried shirt, because it’s too good to pass up.

Both 2nd grade classes were making the same shirts with their respective room mothers. My child’s teacher really missed out, because she selected the one person on earth who is 100% inept at all things crafty. Seriously, I have no skills…at…all. But hey, she came asking me to be room mother and not the other way around, so she gets what she gets.

The other 2nd grade room mother is my exact opposite. It’s almost as though she was born to play the role of room mother. I’m the working room mother who has to break her neck just to find time to obtain and put together 20 Halloween goody bags. Picture me ironing/folding clothes/calling out spelling words/stirring a pot and making goody bags all at one time and THAT is a typical evening in the life of me.

She is the stay at home room mother who apparently has so much free time on her hands that she can not only make Halloween goody bags, but she can make homemade paper mache’ bags to boot. (No offense to my stay at home peeps) Us working moms just get a bit envious of you occasionally, and have notions of you lollygagging about home painting your toe nails and taking bubble baths even though I know that isn’t true.

Ms. Perfect Room Mother arrived with her kids’ shirts 50% done by her and then proceeded to have each child come out of the classroom one at a time so that she could perfectly manage (control) the rest of their shirts.

Then there was me – I came in with white shirts and a bag o supplies and just let all the kids go to town at one time.

The results? Well, her 20 kids have gorgeous Halloween shirts that I would actually consider purchasing if I were in a shop and saw them. My 20 kids? Oh goodness. I wouldn’t use their shirts as hand towels. Our spider webs are blobs of black paint (especially the boys’). Our orange air brushing is splotchy and wild. They are just a mess. However, MY 20 kids had a WONDERFUL time.

They all hung on me when I was leaving and I even got TWO shameless hugs from my own son during the 3 hours (he barely hugs me in private anymore, much less in front of 19 classmates). Later that night, he asked me if I could puhlease come back to his school soon and do another art project. (yeah, me who has the crafting skills of a 4 year old).

The other mother? I don’t think that half of her class even realized that they had done an art project, much less even realized that she was there. They had to watch a movie while she pulled them out one by one. They probably just thought that she was there to show them her shirts that she made for them because all they actually got to do was press down the spider sponge one time after she had already applied the paint for them. My kids were covered in paint and glue and googly eyes and were laughing and just thrilled to be alive.

So, I have decided that our shirts suck and they are a mess and borderline embarrassing, but dammit we had WAY more fun than Ms. Perfect’s class did.

On a side note, and the reason for my title of this post…do parents just not care about their kids anymore? Before I left, the teacher had the kids in Luke’s class do a little Halloween skit for me that they had learned. As I sat there and looked at 12 boys standing in a row, I realized, my son was the ONLY kid who had his shoes tied, had his hair brushed, didn’t have sleep stuck in his eyes, didn’t have wrinkles in his shirt, didn’t have wrinkled pants, had his shirt fully tucked in – AND his shirt was white as snow and made all of the other boys’ shirts look yellow.

I was so proud! Who would have thought that this overly busy, overloaded, overworked, exhausted as all hell, barely getting it all done, working mom – could have the cleanest and neatest and sharpest kid in the class.

P.S. - Sales Managers who come in my office at 4:52pm and ask me to research tax info ASAP EMERGENCY STAT - well - they suck ass. Gotta go.