Round 2: Three Free Things Worth Grabbing

It's TFTWG time again -- here's another roundup of free items that might come in handy for all the room mothers out there....

• Turkey Multi-Age Printables from A Heart 4 Home and Writing, Math and Reading ebooks from School Sparks -- thanks Money Saving Mom for the tip.
• There's a nice "teacher freebie" list at about.com -- I usually forget about about.com, but it's often a decent source for thematic advice & information, if you can find it amid all the advertising clutter (Firefox + AdBlock, I *heart* you).
• The free games at Starfall.com are playable and fun on any computer with Flash and an internet connection (i.e. no iPads, which is too bad!).

First Preschool Potluck

Lesson #1 of the preschool potluck: Whatever you bring, people will love it. Real food is particularly appreciated.

Lesson #2 of the preschool potluck: It will be crowded and cluttery and no one will be able to play or socialize. But somehow it will still be fun.

Lesson #3 of the preschool potluck: Those are cool decorations, but layered on top of the chaotic preschool-ness...hard to notice :(. Make 'em big and don't overwork yourself making them. I was not on the decorating committee, but I don't envy them the challenge...

Lesson #4 of the preschool potluck: It doesn't matter what you signed up for...stay after and help clean up.

Book Orders Redux

A big box of books came my way yesterday...and this morning, out they went into all the little cubbies. Hooray for book orders! It'll be a week or so and then the whole process will start all over again, I guess. I'll have to ask the head teacher when she returns from her trip. Also, I still have Not Made a Halloween costume Yet. We did swing by the store and pick up all the requisite ingredients for the quesadillas, however. Plus some chips and salsa that I've been wanting to try (pumpkin chipotle, what could be better at a halloween party?

Oops, I Forgot to Feel Inadequate

Here I am, happy bouncy mommy, getting all excited about her shiny new Room Mother blog and the fun of playing with kids and school supplies and art projects and field trips and kids and kids and learning and books and parties and yay.

And then I think oh, people are NOT going to want to just listen to me ramble about my emoooootional journey. We needs us some original content, some infos, some relevant something or nothers on this here blog, just like the big girl bloggers. And I briefly have some ambitious notions. And then I think oops, I have five minutes before I should head to bed. I know! I'll Google!

Little did I know, this room mother thing is supposed to be fraught. It's supposed to be filled with competition and angst and comparison of self with other people. Like this poor soul. But there's a problem.... although I really, really, really want to be sensitive to the uncertainties about the path we take in life and the difficult choices that all of us mommies have to make....my problem is that I'm pretty much totally okay with me. I'm good at some stuff, great at some subset of it even, and terrible at some stuff, but I'm at peace with my choices. And I think this might render me totally screwed when it comes to relating to other parents. I think I'm supposed to feel freaky, and either tiger mom it or dwell in the dark night of the soul. All the time. No sunshine for you, momma!

I should've known this would be another battleground in the mommy wars. Remember that bumper sticker (ok, maybe you don't, because you didn't grow up in Eugene Oregon) -- "What if they had a war and nobody showed up?". If you're Martha Stewart, great, be your Martha bad self all over the place. I will sit here, cheer you on, and eat your muffins. If you're conflicted, I will sit with you and talk, we can coffee and agonize and wonder and find some peace or at least some company in each other, as long as you're okay with the fact that I'm okay. If you're a doctorlawyerpastrychef, fan-flipping-tastic, that means more muffins and you can tell me either what that rash is or who I should sue because of it. But seriously. What if we didn't show up? What if we were just okay with it all?

Eh, fine, I am not in bliss every minute of every day. I don't like feeling set up to feel awkward for who I'm not. And no, I don't want to mess up other people's sunshine, inspiring bad feelings by being "too much" or "not enough". I'll try not to be obnoxious. But sometimes I'm the mom sending my kid to preschool with half a breakfast in her hand and stains on her shirt, and sometimes I am the one with a project plan for the distribution of book orders and yummy quesadillas at the party. And while that gorgeous hand-embroidered storybook feltboard might briefly give me a flash of "eek, it's been way too long since I sewed anything"....and when you run about interrupting other people's conversations about Not You to tell them that it was soooo easy, I might just roll my eyes. But I am not going down to the mommy wars. I'm already winning by refusing to show up (nothing wrong with declaring victory and running away). Screw the guilt and the envy, live with your choices, sing in the rain, ya ya ya.

More Halloween, The Party

I signed up on the list to bring food to the preschool halloween party on Saturday -- underneath 'pizza' and 'chicken', I wrote down 'quesadillas' with our name. I figure that this way there will be something available that I know my family will eat (the girls are for some reason not very pizza-oriented and I suspect chicken means fried chicken, which they've never seen and I'm okay with that but which likely means shredding the meat off the bone for the baby and disinterest from the preschooler) and that won't make too much of a mess. I will admit up front that I am going to make these from scratch, but it's about the laziest thing ever. It involves an assembly line of tortillas, cheese, and a lot of pans on a stove while I hang out with my husband in the kitchen, followed by him cutting them into triangles and layering in a crockpot to keep warm. Also, store-bought salsa. But, you know, the good kind. Because I like to eat.

Party, The Halloween

There are two Halloween parties at the preschool -- the room party, and the school party. There are sign-up sheets all over the walls at school. Who hasn't signed up on any of them? Me!

Who hasn't even figured out a costume for her kids yet, but is bound and determined to make them something from scratch? Me!

Who can't even reach her sewing machine and craft supply stash because the floor is completely covered with boxes of stuff that her kids threw all over everywhere that she hasn't had the energy to sit and sift through for months and months, so it's sitting there blocking her access to all the goodies? Me!

I have a feeling there are some crushed-up good intentions in my near future....or else something adorable and fun. I'm thinking a butterfly, complete with wings with glitter and whatnot glued on to them...

The suggested template for performance evaluations at work once included the following assessment criteria: "Makes reasonable plans to accomplish goals and tasks." Fortunately for me, either my boss never noticed this criteria on the form or never noticed that I totally fail in this regard. I don't make reasonable plans...I make grand plans, I make exceptional plans, I make large, crazy, strange plans that delight and excite and overwhelm....reasonable plans are for suckers, ladies. Make wild, awesome plans. Let the three year old crack the eggs into your ridiculous chocolate cupcake plans, let the baby wash the dishes, go to the zoo every week until you know every animal, and write a book in the month of November...There are only 168 hours in a week, who has time for reasonable plans?

Three Free Things Worth Grabbing

Since my one-year-old just crawled up on my lap, put her head down, and fell asleep, what can I do but blog? If I get up, it'll just disturb her....

Plucked from the finest sources across the internet, I bring you TFTWG -- these are freebies I took the time to snag, and which might be useful to other people who are supporting their child's education:

• The US Gov will mail you a poster describing the presidential election process: http://thefreebieblogger.com/free-how-do-i-become-president-poster/ (thanks The Freebie Blogger for the tip, I ordered 2, plus downloaded a bunch of educational-sounding ebooks.)
• Homeschool Creations has fall printables posted -- I printed these for my 3-year-old and I to do at home, but I think they'd work well in a preschool classroom. Printable stuff like this makes me want a laminator...
  
• Two Teaching Mommies has a pumpkin printable pack that we also are enjoying at home.

There are actually a lot of free homeschool curricular materials out there -- I'm sure they won't mind if a working-outside-the-home mommy and a outside-the-home preschool girl enjoys using them too :-). Mommy bloggers save me time and money every day (thanks!).

Book Orders Away

It's a little soon to declare victory, but everything looks good for the BookMongering! People made orders -- seven people, even, and only one of them was me! Our order went in on schedule (dropped in the mail yesterday on the way home from music class). $140 in books plus the 500 bonus points made for 640 points, plus 4 free books. The basic cycle went like this:

• Pick a due date.
• 15 days before the date, set up the due dates in the online store and make the flyers available.
• 10-14 days from when you want to mail it, send home flyers and a little instruction sheet. Don't discount the online option, each online order is a $3 bonus and online orders are wayyyy less work for you :).
• 2-3 days before the due date, send home a reminder.
• Check the accumulation of coupons and bonuses, see if anything is expiring before the next order. Make sure the teacher uses those bonus bucks :)
• Due date: collect the checks and orders together. People will make mistakes in their total, in their quantities, etc.
• Ask any follow-up questions and make sure everything is accurate.
• Enter paper orders online.
• Send a confirmation e-mail to anyone who turned in a paper order.
• Make the order
• Mail the checks
• Wait
• Unpack the books and send home the goodies!

Book Order Minder

For my first-ever volunteer job for the preschool, I signed up to manage the book orders process.

I loved these as a kid, I love to read, and it seemed natural enough. Being techie types, we also volunteered to be on the tech committee, we go to the meetings, and I seem to be dragging laundry and dirty toys home every so often. It's a co-op, there's work to be done. The book orders thing, though, is a job I signed up for. Jumped up for, just about, when the opportunity came my way. Books. Books!

It seems to be a fairly easy job. Make some flyers, print some things out, collect orders back again, place them, divide the books when they come back again. Families get books, the teachers get points to use on books, there are promos and coupons and bonuses of various kinds. Fun!

Scholastic.com is a nice website as long as you don't try to use it with Firefox for Mac (what's up with that?), there's a nice range of books from cartoon characters to award winners, the process is easy (I spelled it all out in the little flyer! I made little boxes with book recommendations and instructions to set off the friendly welcoming text that Mr. Mother and I composed and signed!). Now all I need are some book orders.....and no one has put in any orders. I am taping little reminders to each cubby tomorrow (decorated by Ms.1) and I hope that will bring them pouring out of the woodwork. Otherwise, I guess I'll look forward to the November order season.

We got hit with a whole lot of different things the same week I sent out the order forms, and I imagine that ordering the latest Pinkalicious (What IS pinkalicious? Why does she have so many books about her? Is this like asking whether Nancy is really all that Fancy, or just cluttered? Doesn't rhyme, can't be true. Got it.) books pales in comparison to figuring out a Halloween costume, prepping for the two preschool Halloween parties they're having (there's the room party, you see, and the school party), plus the BundtCakePopcornCookieDough Sale, plus the three infectious disease alerts, a birthday party invite, and a cognitive development study to sign off on. Maybe if I can get on the little monthly calendar....because, you know, the solution to failing to rise above the din is to just Talk A Whole Lot Louder (just ask my girls today....yeesh).

Cranky About "Buy Expensive Knicknacks" Fundraisers

At the risk of alienating half the parents out there, I'm going to reveal a secret....you know those fundraisers where you take home a catalog of stuff and then you're supposed to ask your friends and neighbors to buy some of your random whatnots? They kinda make me cranky. I may smile and tuck the circular into my bag, next to the calendar with the room meetings written on it and the memos about who has impetigo and the description of my child's latest skinned knee. I might even nod eagerly as you explain the details of how I do what I'm supposed to do. But inside, I'm rolling my eyes.

On the one hand, we have a duty to raise the money and P-A-R-T-I-C-I-P-A-T-E. Education is underfunded everywhere, and maybe someone really will appreciate that big tin of popcorn. Maybe you just helped them cross a random relative off their gift list or avoid a trip to the store. Better to spend our money in ways that benefit the school than send the same amount to some corporation that uses it to chop down baby seal habitat or something. But wait, that implies a similarity in price. Oh no.

The prices are often ridiculous. Am I really going to ask my friends and neighbors and co-workers to buy a $22 cake? No. I don't know what kind of money they make, particularly, but I'm pretty sure that some of them are struggling to make ends meet and asking them to shell out what might be several hours wages for a cake is just rude.

I can handle all kinds of fundraisers....a truck wash, a snack bar, a bake sale, a garage sale, a food drive, a penny jar, bingo night, spaghetti feed, cake walk, car raffle...bring it on. But the big wad of gift wrap and that tasteful collection of Santa bags and tags makes me a little crazy. I don't like to pay retail for seasonal tchotchkes. Pardon me while I spellcheck that. I kept adding more consonants, but it didn't seem to be helping. Tchktchotchkkes. There we go. Yes, I like to get that stuff for fifty cents in January. I like it even better when they pay me to take it home.

I was reasonably good at the candy bar sales in high school -- just carry a box of candy to each class, put in on my desk, and if anyone wanted one, they knew the drill. Girl Scout cookies, Camp Fire candy, usually people were reasonably happy with the product and didn't mind giving me a few bucks for something tasty. Roadside barbeque chicken, ushering at football games, making tortillas at fairs...no problem. I will work my butt off in the rain, I will work late hours, I will stand on my feet all day...as long as I don't have to ask the person in the next office to buy a plastic snow globe.

And here's the darkest bit of the secret: part of my crankiness about these sales is that I'm not good at them. I like to win. I want my kid to take home the prize. Some people are born salespeople, and everyone loves to buy things from them. There's no awkwardness, no sense of risked friendship or sociability. They like to sell, I like to buy.

But I am not that salesperson for this kind of stuff. Some folks go for the subtle approach -- put the offer on their FB status, hang the sign-up sheet in the lunchroom. That's ok by me. But subtle and relaxed is not going to win this thing, because there are Salespeople parents out there and I am not one of them. My 3-year-old is not going to get a big gold star because I signed up everyone on the planet for a full-price magazine subscription. We are going to lose this contest, and I like to win. There, I said it.

Anyone want to give me $22 for a bundt cake?

First Post

Hello world!

I'm just getting started in the world of parent volunteering at my daughter's preschool, and I thought I might share my journey as I go.

Do you volunteer for your child's school? Welcome! Let's get to know each other, maybe you can show me the ropes.

Are you considering volunteering but you're not sure if it will work for you? Maybe swapping questions and stories will help.

Here's a little about my family – I'm the work-outside-the-home mommy of two (we can call them Ms.3 and Ms.1), with a fantastic husband and a great extended family that is all over the country. DH and I both work in IT, and of course want to make use of the things we know as we help our daughter's preschool be the best it can be. Both my mom and my mother-in-law are teachers – so we have an extra-special place in our hearts for the hard work that teachers do!