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!).