Hundred
Recently, the kids celebrated their Hundredth day of school. I'm sure we were given warning well in advance. I might have read that note and set it aside to write on the calendar. In reality, I think that as soon as it connected with a flat surface, the surrounding clutter gleefully launched itself into the air and landed in a triumphant dogpile on top of the note.
*eye twitch*
So, yes. I forgot, until the day before, when my daughter said "I have to bring a hundred things in a bag!" and my son said "I need a hat with a hundred things on it!" and the submerged information started to flail tiny fists against my temple. I could have planned ahead, and had this done weeks ago! I could have been prepared this time. I could have...
Who am I kidding? I threw the kids into the van, while they continued the brawl that had started at school pickup. We drove to the party store across town, and scored a plastic top hat and a bunch of dinosaur party favors, and then we headed home. I toyed with the idea of sending my daughter on a nature scavenger hunt to get 100 tiny tidbits, but when she hauled a landscaping rock and 3' tree branch to the front steps and returned to find more 'tiny' items, I blew the whistle.
"Hey! You can take 100 pennies!" I shouted out the front window. "And you can even keep 'em after!"
She immediately dropped something slimy-looking and wiped her hands on her white blouse as she trotted into the house. I fetched our loose change box and ceremoniously wrote "100 DAYS!!!" on a ziplock baggie. The little miser went to work stacking coins and cackling over her sudden wealth.
Across the kitchen table, a migrane was brewing as I attempted to figure out how to attach a bunch of plastic dinosaurs to a plastic hat. Glue! No. Takes too long, and it's not working. Aha! Hot glue gun. Crap! Melts the plastic on the hat!
My son stood practially on top of my shoulders, micromanaging the placement of the dinosaurs, and suggesting ways that I could NOT screw up his hat. Frustrated, I toyed with the idea of throwing the dinosaurs against the wall, breaking the plastic hat over my knee and giving the whole steaming pile of project materials an obscene gesture before flouncing out of the room in rage-fueled tears.
But no. I restrained myself. I took a couple of tylenols, and found my sewing kit. That's right. I ended up SEWING dinosaurs on the hat. SEWING.
The hat was a hard-to-puncture-with-a-needle plastic so I had to pre-puncture the sucker with a push pin. Good for taking out some angst, but still. Then while sewing (and don't even get me started on the boy's insistance that herds be kept together, and arranged by color - just NO) I had to line the needle up carefully with the pre-punched hole or it wouldn't go through.
This was painstaking, painful sewing. With a micro-managing five year old on my shoulder and on my very ass.
Behold! The majesty that is my son's 100th Day of School Hat, entitled "Ode To Dinosaurs -they still exist, you see, but only in bony form, but they once roamed Northern California, and someday, if we dig enough in our yard, we will find one but probably not a triceratops, more like a pachecephalasaurus, but maybe only it's leg bones, but we'll know because it has bird-hips and in fact dinosaurs still roam the earth because they are birds and birds are them."
Behold.
Once at school, my youngest declared her intent to walk in the parade with the kindergarteners. I was pressed into service helping kids make last minute hats with stickers and construction paper. As we finished the last few hats, the parade had already started. I added a few staples to the final creation, and looked around for my daughter. Apparenly, she had started to march with the big kids, and stayed right in line, waving gravely to the classes as she paraded through several classrooms. I caught up with her midway through, and she motioned to me to stay back. Hah!This is what all that attachement parenting has done for me. My children are all, "get away, woman!" Anyway, more photos on Flickr. Go see 'em!
Comments
Oh you WONDERFUL MOTHER, you! Sewing dinosaurs??? That's medal-worthy.
And I am suddenly SO HAPPY that our kindergarten asks for a plain white t-shirt the first week of class and then on the 100th day the kids put 100 dots on them and the teachers write "I survived 100 days of kindergarten!"
Posted by: Mir | February 8, 2006 11:11 AM
I'm diggin' the stylin' "100" glasses myself. :)
Thanks for the warning that this is what I'm in for when my baby starts kindergarten.
Posted by: Cookie | February 8, 2006 11:52 AM
Whoa, you are one rockin' mama. Sewing plastic dinos on a plastic hat simply would.not.happen in my house.
Love your description of the announcement paper and how it was ambushed.
Posted by: Stephanie C. | February 8, 2006 12:00 PM
Oh my goodness. I bow to you, oh Mothering Goddess. Seriously, you sewed the dinos on the hat?
This post takes me back a few years, back to dying and gluing 100 pieces of macaroni to a shoebox lid (in a beach scene mosaic, no less.)to celebrate Drama Queen's 100th day of Kindergarten. I am so happy 5th grade does not celebrate this "holiday."
*sigh*
Posted by: Jenn2 | February 8, 2006 1:07 PM
You are such a creative mom! I probably would have put 100 staples in a base ball cap and sent him on his way...
Posted by: Crazy Lady | February 8, 2006 1:09 PM
Staples! See, that is totally something I could get behind!
Posted by: Jenny | February 8, 2006 1:15 PM
You win, Jenny. You totally win!
Posted by: buffi | February 8, 2006 1:27 PM
Are you freaking kidding me :))) ?!?!?! I taped 100 pieces of hockey tape to a poster board. I think I win for creativity. Obviously I jest. That was quite cool.
Posted by: Mega Mom | February 8, 2006 2:36 PM
Oh yeah, I have totally done this one too - in my case BOTH the Easter hat parade and spring hat parade. The Easter hat ended up with a HUGE stuffed bunny attached through a system of cantilevers and more sewing thread than was actually in the hat to begin with, and the glue gun got hauled out for attaching 2 billion little beach/spring oriented plastic button jobs (thank you all of those women out there who find the time to make scrap books, 'cos it means that shops actually STOCK stuff like this!). By the way - straw hats don't melt when you use the glue gun...but you can't iron things on to them...
Posted by: Neodecanoic | February 8, 2006 2:54 PM
That hat is sooo frigging cool and you're kids will someday, in the very distant future, realize all the effort you went to to make their childhoods special. I would have gone the staples in the ball cap route myself. J/K - I love all the little buttons - I use them on picture frames of my grands to go with whatever theme there is - pretty proud of them actually, the frames and my grands - ev1 thinks they are so awesome, don't realize if you give me two min., a hot glue gun and some buttons, I'm done. LOL
Posted by: Debby | February 8, 2006 5:20 PM
when did this become some sort of tradition? I am so not looking forward to this addition to the elementary school repitoire of required doings. What happened to the whole class just making a big long paper chain???
Great hat. You have more patience than I, that is for dang sure!
Nice excuse for a party, though... next question: How can we turn this into a drinking game?
Posted by: wendy | February 8, 2006 7:27 PM
This is my favorite line:
"I toyed with the idea of throwing the dinosaurs against the wall, breaking the plastic hat over my knee and giving the whole steaming pile of project materials an obscene gesture before flouncing out of the room in rage-fueled tears."
But you came through! You're awesome!
P.S. You can always homeschool. *Ducks*
Posted by: Mary | February 8, 2006 7:50 PM
I'm a special kind of mother. I would have cried and hidden in a closet, letting the little buggers fend for themselves.
So lucky those kids have YOU!
Posted by: Elaine | February 8, 2006 8:04 PM
That is one rockin' dino hat! Great colours.
But what is this "sew" of which you speak?
Posted by: Dawn | February 8, 2006 8:40 PM
Oh my god, you rock. That is the coolest hat ever, and I bet he was the best dressed kid in the school. I did the penny thing when my 10-yr. old was in first grade, it was so easy and the "payoff" incentive convinced him with the quickness. I think we also brought 100 tootsie rolls to share with the kids, 'cause someone had to pay for this project by dealing with 25 sugar-crazed kids running around, and it certainly wasn't me!
Posted by: baseballmom | February 8, 2006 11:42 PM
You are SO great!
This house would have seen a major tantrum thrown by ME for sure!
What a great hat, I'm in awe.
Posted by: barbex | February 9, 2006 2:32 AM
OMG, this brought back memories! Once your kids hit middle school the whole "hundred days" thing is forgotten. But boy, back in the day, I remember that whole scramble! 100 toothpicks, 100 mini marshmallows, 100 chocolate chips....been there, done that!
Posted by: Melanie Lynne Hauser | February 9, 2006 7:03 AM
Can I just say yet again how much I love your blog. My oldest has a 100 day project due next week - I've got to deal w/valentines for 3 kids (why the toddlers need to exchange is beyond me) and their teachers, a host of other stuff and you've given me a wonderful idea - thank you, thank you, thank you.
Posted by: Maria | February 9, 2006 12:41 PM
That's awesome!!
I'm totally screwed. I can barely find time to bathe us both at night. I don't know what will happen when I have to sew a hundred things to a hat. I'm sending a child in a box your way!! Wait - that would not be legal. We'll drive!
Posted by: holli | February 9, 2006 12:49 PM
You are so cool.
At "our" 100th day, my daughter packed up a baggie filled with 100 Q-tips and we drew 100 hearts all over a t-shirt. Big excitement.
At least you took pictures (I didn't! Whoops!). And you helped count out 100 plastic dinosaurs. and sewed them. Like, with a needle. Whoa! I yield to your mothering powers!
Great job!!
And you have a skill that no one can take from you....
Posted by: angie | February 9, 2006 1:58 PM
My sister has to do the same for my nephew next week. I am totally going with the 100 pennies idea for her.
The hat is So cute.
Posted by: Tuesday | February 9, 2006 4:29 PM
80 more to go . . . then whoosh! Straight off to the beach!
Posted by: Philip | February 9, 2006 5:41 PM
Holy ^*%(#)@$*^@*!!! I can't believe you actually did that, even when the needle would not go through. And you did it 100 times! Unbelievable. You win 100 medals at the Mom Olympics.
And I am SO grateful to our kindergarten teacher, that she is only asking the kids to bring in 100 tasty snacks like chocolate chips, cereal, marshmallows, pretzels etc. No way in *&%$@ could I make 3 of those hats!
Wild applause, standing ovation, and loud cheers to you!
Posted by: SheilaC | February 10, 2006 12:10 AM
You're a good mom. I made my son take nuts from the yard. I gave him an old box to load them up in. Done!
Posted by: Anne Glamore | February 10, 2006 6:29 AM
See, when your youngest gets to kindergarten, what you do is take those hundred pennies, get a couple rolls of double-sided tape, and then tape them all to the hat. What? It might work.
You totally rock, Jenny. By the way, I fear kindergarten now, thank you very much. If I have to go through all this on a daily basis, I will most certainly be knocking on your door for ideas and consoling gestures. Of course, by then your kids will be doing *shudder* science projects.
Posted by: Sleepless Mama | February 10, 2006 7:59 AM
I bow down to the master sewer and saviour of the "100 days of school"
we're not worthy we're not worthy
Posted by: Lise | February 10, 2006 10:36 AM
You can't be 43266 serious?!?
Posted by: Max Ballstein | August 19, 2006 12:17 AM