Misconceptions

I think I need to clear up a little misunderstanding. On my last post the lovely Andria commented, "You're so cool and organized and you use holidays for teaching moments."

I would like to nip that little assumption in the bud. Trust me, I'm not as organized as I pretend to be. And to prove it, I'd like to give you a little run down of how my Veteran's Day really went.

I was awakened by my 3 year old. He excitedly ran into my room (at an hour way too early for him to be quite so chipper) and told me that the flag was flying in the front yard. (The local boy scouts do a yearly fund raiser in which they put a flag in your yard throughout the year for several of the holidays.) In my still groggy state I tried to conjure up in my memory what November Holiday warranted a flag in the yard.

I'm a little ashamed to admit that it took me a few minutes to figure out. But once I did my head started spinning about all the things I SHOULD be doing because it was Veterans Day.

So after breakfast and a quick shower I dashed down to the school room and started googling Veterans Day and kids activities.

I put Adam to work writing in his journal (an exercise I force him to do every morning even though he complains. See, I'm mean and make him write me AT LEAST 4 sentences. ) While he was writing I was quickly printing coloring sheets and a fact sheet about the history of the holiday.

I searched at great length the PBS kids website, hoping one of the shows had done a show about Veterans day. Seemed like the thing you might see on Arthur. But no such luck.

Of course, during this time Adam finished his journal entry and was bugging me about what he should do next. So I told him to write 2 more sentences. And draw a picture. And color the picture.

As for the younger kids, I told them to go upstairs and play for a few minutes. Which turned into 20 minutes.

But I was FINALLY ready to stab at teaching about Veterans day. It was halfway through reading the fact list on the history that the idea to check the History Channel's website occurred to me.

So as the kids colored I quickly jumped back onto the computer hoping the History Channel would come through for me, since PBS kids had not.

After reading about the Tomb of the Unknown Solider on my little fact sheet I decided I wanted to show the kids a picture. So Google became my friend, again. And it found me the youtube clip of the changing of the guard. Which was 10 minutes long. And my kids were bored of by about minute 4. (See I didn't tell you all this before. And you thought I had super kids, willing to sit still through anything.)

Next I forced my kids all to change their clothes. And they whined. And questioned why. But my perfect pictures of perfect kids wouldn't be perfect unless they were wearing patriotic colors. So I persevered through the questions and forced them to change into clothing of my choosing. Then I made them all sit still while I combed their hair. Because we can't have pictures of uncombed hair.

And then I forced them outside, into the wind, without coats. Because coats would cover up their patriotic clothes. And they complained about being cold. But I made them stand there anyway as I clicked away.



Good thing we still had these dollar store flags from the 4th of July. That was pure luck. Not planning ahead. Trust me.



I even made them march around a bit. It didn't work out so great.



Then I had in my head the idea for them to sing a song for their grandfathers. But I didn't have the music. Or a car. And Google failed me this time.

So I punted. I called my dad, hoping he was working from home. I knew the songbook I wanted was at his house and I hoped he could bring it to me and play the song for me as well. But no such luck.

So then I politely asked (practically begged) my brother to come over, stay with my kids, and let me take his car to get to my parent's for the music book. Luckily, he said yes.

But the difficulties were not at an end yet. Oh no. Because now I had to actually teach the song to the kids. Which, at one point resulted in me storming walking calming out of the front room in complete exasperation. I may even have said something like "I guess you guys just don't care about our Veterans. Apparently I'm the only one who wants to say thank you." Yea, not proud of that moment. But I'm just trying to keep it real for you here.

In the end they did sing the song. (I had to play it myself which was not as good as my dad playing for us....but I was punting, remember?)

And then I spent the next SEVERAL hours (too embarrassed to admit how many) trying to edit together pictures and the singing and the marching. Which means I kept telling the kids to go away and play. Sometimes very loudly.

And because I had holed myself up in the office trying to convert files that wouldn't convert and import files that wouldn't import I neglected to start dinner. Which means on the way to the concert we hit the Wendy's drive through.

And that, dear readers, is the truth behind my so called organized life.

Disappointed? It's okay, this always makes me feel better.

And as long as we are keeping it real, this post only took me about 12 hours to write. Yea, life with kids.