School Party Madness

A lot has changed since I was in preschool, where the hardest thing we did was learn how to put on our jackets right side up.

Now, kids go to a second year of preschool called pre-K. And the work they do is pretty darned advanced. Lots of the kids in Alice’s class already have excellent penmanship, for example. I have distinct memories from kindergarten. Most of us were just learning our letters, not writing whole words. The teacher would make us close our eyes and feel the covers of our alphabet books, each of which had a large letter on the cover made from scratchy glitter. My favorite was S because S is for skunk, and who doesn’t love a glittery skunk?

Anyway, if my kids get access to a time machine and visit me in the 1970s, they will laugh at me and my primitive ways.

But they’ll also feel sorry for me because they get much better parties than we do. These kids have fierce, fierce celebrations. They blow my mind.

I have vague memories of getting a sticker at the end of the school year. Or maybe an ice cream bar if we had a really nice teacher. And I do recall going to an all-school field day once where we enjoyed tug-of-war, potato sack races and the futility of trying to find the needle in the haystack.

Now, though, every class in school has its own separate party—this is in addition to the all-school party that happened last month. In these class parties, there are multiple activity stations manned by a troop of highly organized mothers and the occasional obedient father.

Among other things at pre-K this year, the activities include a “foot painting” area, where an adult paints a child’s foot, the child somehow makes art out of it, and another parent washes said child’s foot before stuff gets wrecked.

The cynical part of me always expects the worst assignments at parties. You know, like clean-up after the pie-eating contest…that sort of thing.  So I was fully expecting to be on foot-painting patrol this time around.

But the pre-K teacher is well aware of my limitations, thankfully. There are a lot of separate tasks involved with painting a foot, including helping it connect to paper, and handing it off for a good scrubbing. That’s frankly more than I can handle, particularly when you throw in the stuff you sometimes find on the bottom of children’s feet. I made Lucy wash hers just last night after I noticed she’d left what look like chunky-style Cajun seasoning on Adam’s side of the bed during story time. (Sorry, Adam.)

Instead, though, I was assigned to monitor the bubble parade. I was also supposed to bring in a huge jug of bubbles and enough wands for all the kids—something that did not quite go according to plan for reasons that rhyme with “helegated to dusband.”

But, whatever. We parents aren’t being graded on our volunteer efforts, although sometimes, we act like we are. It’s hard, though, to make a reasonable effort and leave it at that. This morning, I even made sure Alice had clean feet inside her socks because I didn’t want the other parents to think of me as the mom with the Cajun-footed daughter.

All in all, it can be a lot of pressure on a person. Why do we do this to ourselves?

The truth of the matter is, our kids would probably be just as happy with a Popsicle and a pat on the head. They are getting out of school, after all. No matter how much things change over the years, the thrill of summer vacation remains.

Dirty feet and all, I can't wait.

--Martha Brockenbrough

Comments

[Anne]

foot painting - are you kidding me! I never heard of such a thing; yes I must be a dinosaur (well my children think I am anyways .. ha!) I agree; my kids NEVER get into bed with dirty feet; that is a no-no in our house & they know that! I think they would be just as happy with ice-cream and being with their friends, that's all they need & their imagination! That's what's lacking today - imagination! They can do so much more with their minds than with "foot paint". Anne, NY

[Dani]

Another new favorite word, "dusband", love it. Reminds me of a band I loved in college - Neds Atomic Dustbin. Good stuff.

[julie]

Thank you for making me laugh tonight, Martha. Needed that after a bit of a rough day being the parental unit "on" for 12 hours straight. We did the foot painting thing in pre-3's preschool. My son opted out because he said the paint looked cold.