This was the post I meant to compose this Saturday, right after I rushed the kids off to the Religious Education class kindly provided by the Catholic church. Especially helpful since their mother is a Heathen. As usual, we were late. But this year the teacher is nice. She never once gave me the evil eye for stomping into the classroom with my unbrushed wet hair and my youngest sipping on milk box (NOT juice box, mind you. I am a good mother) while holding a half-eaten cereal bar. She is not like this other teacher that my oldest once had who admonished HIM and not me directly, “Your mother should really try to get you here on time every Saturday. She should also take you to Mass every Sunday.” And later, the same teacher caused my oldest, at the age of 6, to fear that my husband and I would be going to Hell because we are not regular church goers.
But I digress. This post is not meant to discuss the complexities of talking/teaching about religion(S) in our mixed-faith household. I can only fall into Psychotic Ranting once a week, at most. Or, I try to ration myself. This post is about the other joyful aspect of parenthood (fuck that. It is ALWAYS the moms that have to do this. So why bother? I am just going to use this word) Motherhood, Arts and Crafts.
If you are one of the loyal followers (Seriously, people. I love you and I worry about your mental health…) of my descent into Inferno, then you have come to learn my ineptitude in making anything with my hands and my faith in Glue Guns. Imagine my surprise when I found a notice from the RE class, wedged into the corner of my youngest’s backpack, about some Decorating a Christmas Tree For the Zoo thing. Deadline:
TODAY! (November 7)
Are you kidding me? First response.
Cough cough. “Do you know about this thing from your Church School?”
Boy nodded.
“How come you didn’t tell mommy?”
“I did and you put it on the refrigerator!” while pointing to the incriminating evidence.
Ah. No wonder I ignored it until now….
“Uh. Right! Okay! So… Do you still want to do it?”
“Yes… If it is not too much trouble…” complete with Puppy Eyes.
Gosh darn it! Why can’t he behave like a brat at this moment. I hate it when they are all considerate and stuff.
Second response:
I threw every arts and crafts thing we own onto the table. (Although I am not handy and don’t spend quality time with my children, I have hoarded a lot of arts and crafts material AND kitchen gadgets AND nice cloth napkins for when the time comes… The time when I would fulfill my destiny as Super Mom…) What to do? What to do? Yes, the CD craft idea!
We didn’t even have time to warm up the glue gun. Fortunately I found FOAM STICKERS! Thank you Michaels! Although yours is a store full of crap, I am very grateful for the crap I routinely buy from you. AND….
Metallic Permanent Pens! I have a set of 4 colors! YEEESSSS! I brought them back from our last visit home and have forgot about them until now.
This may require some explanation: My husband and I are weird. We get excited over pens. Not the fancy Montblanc, but inexpensive, yet “fancy”, cheap chic, pens that you can find in PEN STORES in Taiwan and Japan. Yes, people, they have stores dedicated to PENS over there. Your regular ballpoint pens. Roller ball pens. Mechanic pencils. Coloring, note-taking, highlighting pencils. Permanent markers. Jelly pens. White board pens. 0.1 mm. 0.3 mm. 0.5 mm. 0.7 mm. 1 mm. And the colors. Oh, the colors.
I spend a lot of time browsing, lusting after, choosing, and purchasing pens whenever I go home.
Because of my foresight of hoarding things which are otherwise totally useless, I was able to complete a kickass Christmas ornament in 15 minutes.
Even more impressive is that I was not fazed at all when I saw the fine print:
“Please make sure your ornament has a religious theme to it. NO Santa Clause or Rudolph the Reindeer please.”
I swear. I did not make this up…
I grabbed one of the metalic pens and wrote, under the Christmas Tree,
Happy Birthday Baby Jesus!
p.s. Of course, now I am looking at my masterpiece again, and wondering whether Baby Jesus would ever need gloves and snow boots (’cause that is what that red thing is. It ain’t no Stocking for what’s-his-name to put presents in!) where he grew up. It’s all desert there, eh? What with the camels and all. Tell me there are camels! Our porcelain camel is our favorite from the Lenox Nativity set that my mother-in-law gave us. (Well, “favorite” after Baby Jesus of course…)
p.p.s. Seriously, Lenox people, are you sure there were GEESE and ROOSTERS in that manger the night baby Jesus was born?
p.p.p.s. You know what is the best part of this whole Decorating the Christmas Tree ordeal? I rushed into the classroom to give the teacher the ornament. She looked at me like I was crazy. She had forgot. All the kids screamed, “What is that? What is that?” NONE of the other kids turned in the ornament. Heathen: 1
As a mom, teacher, Catholic, wanna-be craftster, pen addict, and chronic procrastinator, I like how you’ve got a little something for everyone here.
Also, I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that the teacher laughed her ass off at “Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus!”
.-= Falling´s last blog…Why This Post is Lame =-.
This is awesome: “mom, teacher, Catholic, wanna-be craftster, pen addict, and chronic procrastinator” I am totally gunning for such demographic!! To hell with the 18 to 24 males. I will leave the nekkid Marge to take care of those. And thank you for the reassurance that the teacher would find it amusing rather than offended. Even though I am a heathen, I still hate to be rude…
@ TheKitchenWitch
LOL. I am bound to say/do something dumb that will make you regret saying this. Very soon.
Okay, it’s official–you are my hero.
.-= TheKitchenWitch´s last blog…It ain’t pretty, but it be good! =-.
@ Velva
Thank you. You are always so kind and encouraging. Being evil, I now need to drag you pen shopping some day! Bawhahaha.
@ Unknown Mami
Thank you for visiting my blog! So are you Tereza or Sabina? 😉 My friends and I had such a heated debate in college…
Up till my youngest was 4, my MIL had a cake every Christmas evening and we sang Happy Birthday to Baby Jesus. That was her very quiet way of reminding the kids, and us, what Christmas is supposed to be about, in addition to the presents. I thought that was very nice.
That is one ‘kick-ass” ornament” I am totally impressed! You sound like me in so many ways, and you just express it so darn good.
Seriously, they have stores that sell only pens ? I am so glad that pen stores are not readily available here at home because I would have issues. I would have pens stashed all over the house in kleenex boxes and under the mattress….This would not be good for me.
.-= Velva´s last blog…Deep Dish Apple Pie =-.
Way to kick ornament ass, Heathen! And I’m glad you said “Happy Birthday Baby Jesus” because Baby Jesus is the cutest Jesus.
@ Amanda
Thank you for visiting my blog! And thank you for the moral support. Heathens need all the secular support they need. LOL.
@ Jane
This heathen thanks you. But do I still get the fish fry? 😉
@ Merrilymarylee
LOL. Uggs for Mary, excellent!!
@ Nancy@ifevolutionworks.com
LOL. Thank you. I feel deeply honored. I guess that means I need to do more arts and crafts projects with my children. Where is my glue gun?!
@ Miranda
Yikes. Self-righteous already from such a young age? You totally should have taught her a lesson…
My favorite pen is one I bought in Paris. Shaped like a baguette. How can you not like that?
Go Heathens!!
.-= Amanda´s last blog…Come On Guys. Where Are You? =-.
I love it! And I love it how the heathens are ahead! You go, girl!
.-= Jane´s last blog…Almost Wordless Wednesday =-.
Of course it’s perfect. That only looks like a red stocking to the secular humanists. You and I know that the boot was symbolic of the Uggs you’d want Mary to have had for her aching feet, right?
One would think the teacher would be pleased that you thought of the Mother’s feet. ‘Splain that to her, Lucy.
.-= Merrilymarylee´s last blog…Information Specialist At Your Service =-.
Well, for what it’s worth, I am impressed! Amazing how those school notices get pushed to the side. I’m the queen of doing that same thing.
I’m so impressed, that I gave you an award on my blog today 🙂
.-= Nancy@ifevolutionworks.com´s last blog…A Long Overdue Award…to YOU. =-.
Awesome! I love it! The teacher even forgot? When did they change the name to “Religious Education?” When I was going it was called CCD. And our class made our teacher cry. I got kicked out of class a couple times too. I’m a bad bad Catholic. I haven’t been to church since the last time I visited my mom. Oh and last year I got to coach a 5th grade basketball team at a Catholic school and one of the girls asked me about Lent and if it was okay to eat cheese on Friday because it had protein, and I said. “Uhm if they haven’t changed the rules, I believe cheese is okay…you just can’t eat meat.” Then she called me a bad Catholic for not going to church all the time. I made her run a lot in practice for that. (Okay I really didn’t)