As you might notice, one of my top 10 dislikes and or inconveniences are "La La Poo Poo Mothers". First, let me explain exactly what a "LLPPM" is. Unlike myself, they are non working, very wealthy, very pretty, mothers with nothing but time on their hands. They have all the time in the world to do....whatever.... They rear their ugly heads at various times in order to (I believe) make us working mothers feel more horrible and guilty about ourselves than we already do. They are the ones that give birthday parties at 3:30 pm on a Tuesday afternoon because it's more convenient. TO WHO!!!
You always know who the working mothers kids are because they are always catching a ride with the "LLPPM". For instance, my daughters Brownie troop meets every other Tuesday at 3:30 at the Presbyterian Church and of course she always has to ride with the troop leader. When I pick her up, I'm always greeted by the Leader of the "LLPPM" who will remain nameless with a... "You look pretty today, I can't imagine having to get dressed up like that everyday". Is that suppose to be a compliment? Once while picking Bryleigh up from a birthday party, I was approached by one of the "LLPPM" and she asked me if that was my mother that ALWAYS had Bryleigh. GOD!!! I have managed to stay as involved as I possibly can, keeping up pretty well with them. Volunteering as story mom, being cookie manager for the brownie troop, and creating pretty cool Valentine's and Christmas presents. But this past week, I realized that no matter what, I am just not going to be able to keep up. And I realized why. I DON'T CARE!
Word for word this is what the project request was "We would like for you to help your child crate a Family Tree. This will help the students see how families are different. Please allow the students to list parents, siblings (brothers and sisters) as well as their grandparents (mom's and dad's parents only). If they would like to include great-grandparents that is fine also, it is their choice. They may use anything they wish to create this and then share it with the class. As you are going over the family with the child please also help them fill in the blanks for the attached sheet. This will help them tell the story of their family and will help us to compare and contrast the families in the classroom-there are different cultures represented in the classroom and this is a great way to show how they can differ! This is a great learning opportunity for all of us. Thank you for your guidance and support!"
Bryleigh and I began work on this immediately. I let HER go through albums and pick the pictures she wanted. She picked this GREAT one of my mom and dad. My mom had that really really big hair and my dad had one of those really puffy 70's porno mustaches. She picked a picture of granny and grandpa Frazier at their 25th wedding anniversary and one of granny pib and pa at the beach. She also picked out pictures of Roger's family and we attached them to the poster board. We had long conversations about why Papa hill wasn't anywhere on the tree and where her grandpa David was. It was very cool. We ended up putting papa hill as an honorary mention in the right hand corner. Her idea, I thought it was pretty cute. We drew with green marker leaves and then put a big picture of her and Jaxon at the trunk of the tree. I let her write the names of each of the family members and of course her name was in big glitter letters. I thought it looked great. We filled out the attached worksheet and I let her put on there whatever she wanted. It asked questions like "Where does your family like to shop?" Bryleigh..."The Mall". "Where does your family buy clothes"..Bryleigh..."K-mart"..."Why?" Bryleigh..."Because they have good clothes".
So, we get out of the car the next morning to take it into school and she walked with it so proudly through the hall way, and then we turned the corner to her classroom and I could see the embarrassment on her face. There were family trees that looked like something out of the damn Smithsonian. One was an actual Ficus tree with laminated pictures and calligraphy writing on it. One was set up in a tri fold pattern with those frames attached that show pictures in a slide show. There was one trimmed with green fur from a boa, one with a pedestal, and another with actual leaves and bark attached to the poster board. Bryleigh looked at me, then at her poster board and said "Why didn't we do all that". I said "Honey, I promise that you learned more and had more fun than anyone else in your classroom doing this project, we didn't have to put fur, or leaves or spend a ton of money on it to make ours look the best. These people had to put all that extra stuff on it, because their families aren't as great as ours. YOU did yours just like you were suppose to and you should be very proud to show it off." She kind of shrugged her shoulders and took her poster board and propped it up against the base of the Ficus tree. I just winked at her and left.
When I got back to the van I sat there and had a pity party for about 10 minutes until I realized that what I had told her was completely true. I promise no one else had as great a time as we did. And I think it is sad that these mothers took such a wonderful opportunity to spend time with their children and turned it into another "LLPPM" competition. The family trees will be displayed at Open House this coming Tuesday and I am going to brag and brag on Bryleighs in my loudest Bartow voice I can, so everyone can hear me!!!
You always know who the working mothers kids are because they are always catching a ride with the "LLPPM". For instance, my daughters Brownie troop meets every other Tuesday at 3:30 at the Presbyterian Church and of course she always has to ride with the troop leader. When I pick her up, I'm always greeted by the Leader of the "LLPPM" who will remain nameless with a... "You look pretty today, I can't imagine having to get dressed up like that everyday". Is that suppose to be a compliment? Once while picking Bryleigh up from a birthday party, I was approached by one of the "LLPPM" and she asked me if that was my mother that ALWAYS had Bryleigh. GOD!!! I have managed to stay as involved as I possibly can, keeping up pretty well with them. Volunteering as story mom, being cookie manager for the brownie troop, and creating pretty cool Valentine's and Christmas presents. But this past week, I realized that no matter what, I am just not going to be able to keep up. And I realized why. I DON'T CARE!
Word for word this is what the project request was "We would like for you to help your child crate a Family Tree. This will help the students see how families are different. Please allow the students to list parents, siblings (brothers and sisters) as well as their grandparents (mom's and dad's parents only). If they would like to include great-grandparents that is fine also, it is their choice. They may use anything they wish to create this and then share it with the class. As you are going over the family with the child please also help them fill in the blanks for the attached sheet. This will help them tell the story of their family and will help us to compare and contrast the families in the classroom-there are different cultures represented in the classroom and this is a great way to show how they can differ! This is a great learning opportunity for all of us. Thank you for your guidance and support!"
Bryleigh and I began work on this immediately. I let HER go through albums and pick the pictures she wanted. She picked this GREAT one of my mom and dad. My mom had that really really big hair and my dad had one of those really puffy 70's porno mustaches. She picked a picture of granny and grandpa Frazier at their 25th wedding anniversary and one of granny pib and pa at the beach. She also picked out pictures of Roger's family and we attached them to the poster board. We had long conversations about why Papa hill wasn't anywhere on the tree and where her grandpa David was. It was very cool. We ended up putting papa hill as an honorary mention in the right hand corner. Her idea, I thought it was pretty cute. We drew with green marker leaves and then put a big picture of her and Jaxon at the trunk of the tree. I let her write the names of each of the family members and of course her name was in big glitter letters. I thought it looked great. We filled out the attached worksheet and I let her put on there whatever she wanted. It asked questions like "Where does your family like to shop?" Bryleigh..."The Mall". "Where does your family buy clothes"..Bryleigh..."K-mart"..."Why?" Bryleigh..."Because they have good clothes".
So, we get out of the car the next morning to take it into school and she walked with it so proudly through the hall way, and then we turned the corner to her classroom and I could see the embarrassment on her face. There were family trees that looked like something out of the damn Smithsonian. One was an actual Ficus tree with laminated pictures and calligraphy writing on it. One was set up in a tri fold pattern with those frames attached that show pictures in a slide show. There was one trimmed with green fur from a boa, one with a pedestal, and another with actual leaves and bark attached to the poster board. Bryleigh looked at me, then at her poster board and said "Why didn't we do all that". I said "Honey, I promise that you learned more and had more fun than anyone else in your classroom doing this project, we didn't have to put fur, or leaves or spend a ton of money on it to make ours look the best. These people had to put all that extra stuff on it, because their families aren't as great as ours. YOU did yours just like you were suppose to and you should be very proud to show it off." She kind of shrugged her shoulders and took her poster board and propped it up against the base of the Ficus tree. I just winked at her and left.
When I got back to the van I sat there and had a pity party for about 10 minutes until I realized that what I had told her was completely true. I promise no one else had as great a time as we did. And I think it is sad that these mothers took such a wonderful opportunity to spend time with their children and turned it into another "LLPPM" competition. The family trees will be displayed at Open House this coming Tuesday and I am going to brag and brag on Bryleighs in my loudest Bartow voice I can, so everyone can hear me!!!
