Appreciate This Auxiliary Mom!

It’s Teacher Appreciation Week at Wildman’s preschool. I thought teacher appreciation was typically celebrated on a specific day and was not a week-long event. But whatever! I’m the kind of person who just needs to be told who, what, when, where and I’ll get it done. Janie (name has been changed), our preschool auxiliary mom, concocted this crazy list of hoops she wanted all the parents to jump through to show their appreciation… Let me see if I can recap for you:

Monday– Send in a flower to the teacher. Also, volunteers will be needed to take the children’s hand prints for the special books that will be bound for the teachers. The teachers will be attending a catered breakfast while the hand prints are being done. I’m the sucker who said yes to helping with the hand prints… I signed up to be up to my elbows in blue paint and 10 three-year-olds with my youngest strapped down and whining in his stroller. When will I learn my lesson?! When?!

Tuesday– Turn in the blue sheet of paper that was sent home last week with a photo of your child pasted on it and a drawing that your child has completed. Additional volunteers will be needed to take the Tuesday-Thursday children’s hand prints. Those who attend MWF should send in their blue sheets on Wednesday.

Wednesday– Send in something that smells sweet for the teacher. This can be candles, soaps, etc. Also send in the coral (I’m not making this up. Instead of saying pink, Janie said coral) sheet with the questionnaire on it that you’ve filled out. MWF children should send in the blue sheet on this day as well.

Thursday– Send in something that tastes sweet for the teacher. Volunteers will be needed to bind the special books for the teachers.

Friday– Volunteers will be needed to help pass out the special books for the teachers. MWF students should send in their ‘tastes sweet’ gift at this time.

After reading all of this crap over and over again, I finally deciphered what I was supposed to do. I showed up on Monday morning with Wildman clutching his bouquet of Gerber daisies and Cutie Pie strapped into the umbrella stroller. Janie let a few volunteers in the front door and proceeded to shut the door right in my face saying that she only wanted volunteers to come in early. I loudly proclaimed that I was, in fact, there to help. She kind of rolled her eyes and let me in. Under her breath she said that she wasn’t there to open the flood gates. Grrr!

So, Wildman’s teacher slipped out to have her breakfast as soon as I got there. The other hand print volunteer and I were left wondering what we were supposed to do since we didn’t have any paint or ink. Janie waltzed in a little bit later asking if we needed anything. I stated the obvious and she managed to deliver the supplies. I was the mom who painted the hands and the other mom cleaned the hands. It worked out pretty well except all the girls in the class wanted to wheel Cutie Pie around in his stroller and he wanted none of it. Wildman threw a temper tantrum when I went to leave. He didn’t want me to leave without him and wouldn’t let go of my leg and wailed his little heart out. His teacher finally lured him out on the playground so I could escape.

So, I went on to cross all of the other tasks off of Janie’s Teacher Appreciation To-Do List. And then the phone call came. One of the moms who volunteered to bind the special books rang me up this afternoon to inform me that Wildman’s blue and coral forms were no where to be found. Then she proceeded to tell me that Janie said there was nothing she could do about mom’s who couldn’t get there stuff done on time. Excuse me?!

Apparently the book binding session this morning was a complete nightmare. There are 96 students enrolled at the preschool and all of their papers were piled together without rhyme or reason. They were not sorted by teacher or age or anything. The volunteers were left to fend for themselves with the book binding effort. It’s no surprise to me that Wildman’s stuff got lost. How dare Janie assume that I’m a slacker mom though! I mean, what is that?

On Wednesday afternoon, I found a purple envelope in Wildman’s bag with a note attached requesting donations for day at the spa for Janie. I don’t believe I’ll be contributing to this. It should come out of the auxiliary fund that I contributed to in September anyway!

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