Craft Class Week 6: The Monsters Plan their Escape

ahhh...back to craft class. One week off for teacher conferences and I almost forgot how my heart sings for those little crazies!  er maybe sings isn't the right word.. hollers? yelps? runs around with its arms in the air screaming..? I'll have to think about it.

This week's project: Decoupaged Treasure Chest (pretty paper glued on a small cardboard box)

Some Highlights:

Opening the box of decoupage paper to the high pitched screams of " I want THAT ONE!!!" Commence aggressive jumping, pushing, indian burns, paper ripping, complete havoc.  Regained control with the help of some tall bookshelves, and empty promises of "paper for everyone!"

I was offered a single m&m from several children...very flattered of course.

I was alerted to the presence of newly curled hair, (which earned me quite the disgusted griamce when I asked if it was for a hot date), a very important after school soccer game (go team Harris Teeter!) and one boy's ability to scream at such an unholy octave that I questioned whether I might be part dog... then promply decided it didn't matter because a noise like that surely meant the world was ending. Then it stopped, and it was good.

 I was asked if I had a boyfriend by the soccer player, who also stated that she was the only one brave enough to ask (who knew that this was the burning question on everybody's mind?!) They didn't fall for my subject change, so I said yes, to which another one replied "That makes sense 'cause you're pretty." Fighting back a full blown feminist rally cry, I simplified with "You don't have to be pretty to have a boyfriend, in fact you have to be pretty to do anything." Another girl piped in at this point and said "I think sometime in the near future the word boy will mean the same thing as crazy" (Amen sister!!) I replied that I thought the two words might already be synonyms. I then explained what a synonym was and listened to the botched pronunciations of cinnamon, symonym, syminin... for several minutes.

The Lowlights:

Several kids finished their chests relatively early, (mostly because they just globbed a pile of paper and glue on top and declared themselves done, but I'm all for artistic freedom!) and because they all pretty much have zero attention span and endless energy, they wanted to go outside and play.  While I'm totally on board with this, technically I don't think I have the authority to let them leave the classroom to do it.  I responsible for them for that 1 hour and the adult supervision outside is meant for other kids. I of course tried to diplomatically explain this to them, which naturally earned me the complete opposite response. Tears, pouts, tantrums, and declarations of "I hate craft class!" flew my way, and I'm not softy in this department, but when that little boy lurched into that ear splitting scream of his, it was over...anddd out they went.  I distracted a few others with several rounds of thumb war (which my giant adult thumbs dominated at!) then dedicated the rest of class to shooting down excuses to go outside and raising an eyebrow to pleas of "I just want to go stand on the porch."  Thank goodness for the quiet table of girls in the corner...

My Sibs

Lately I've had an extreme urge to be chasing sandpipers on the beach.  What's that you ask? Have I been longingly panning through photos of myself and Cole at the beach last year, reliving the memories and pining for her little black fuzzy face and that adorable left cleft paw?  Certainly not!  This craving is most definitely unrelated.  But since you brought it up, I do miss that little furball, and here's an adorable (and embarrassing for her) picture from Christmas just so you can see what I'm dealing with.

In other news, Chris called me at 1 am this morning for a chat...yes a chat (If you know my brother at all you will recognize the startling nature of this statement...obviously some foreign substances at work) I was home already from my Friday evening and his was apparently still in full swing.  He called from a party in East Stroudsburg to ask the name of a song, which I repeated for him about 7 times to the response "oh okay....wait what was the name again?" before resorting to a text message.  He then proceeded to gush, and I mean gush (I literally could not get a word in....which ironically made me speechless) about where he was, his plans for the weekend, his trip home on Sunday, why he hates valentines day, the weather, his schedule at school and how much he loves talking. ("I could talk all night Laur!")  At this point I was debating whether or not to hang up and call a medic because my brother was clearly on some form of speed.  I settled instead for asking him directly "Are you on coke right now?!" He assured me he was not, but that he had been drinking Jager and Redbull (among other things, I suspect.) This explanation seemed rational enough, so my mind was set temporarily at ease.

Chris then proceeded to ask me all about the things happening in my life.  "How's work Laur? How was last weekend with Adam in Florida? Did you realize that was Valentines day? That's kinda romantic." (insert jaw-dropping silence here...) Well, this prompted a whole new, significantly elevated wave of suspicion, "Sweet Jesus Chris! What are you on?!"  He assured me again that it was just the caffeine/alcohol mix and general late-night energy (I have a vague memory of this from my life before senior year), and after 5 minutes of third degree big sister questioning he confirmed that no one would be leaving the house, driving a car, or attempting any dangerous acrobatics/knife tricks.  Whhhew.  The call ended with Chris promising to give Cole a wrestle for me on Sunday, which I decided not to question :)  Also he says "Hey," Suzanne.

Little Craft Monsters..

February 10th 2011:

So I’ve been teaching a craft class at a local elementary school on Thursday afternoons.  I started teaching it last fall through Ornamentea and since it was deemed a success by my boss and the school, and I quite enjoy teaching it, it has continued into the spring.

Let me say first of all that these kids are adorable.  They range from 8-12 in age and will shock you with their distinct personalities, strict personal styles and sweet but brutal honesty. 

Let me now say that they are absolutely crazy.  After 6 hours of school and a stuffy classroom, I walk through the door and they are doing back flips and running circles around the “CRAFT LADY!!”

Actually they call me "Miss Lauren," which sounds super sweet, but quickly loses its charm when its being screeched at you from 12 different directions and followed up by a verbal list of demands to be executed immediately (upon punishment of aggressive arm tugging)  

Today, while wrapped in 3 yards of glitter gymp cord, attaching jump-rings to multiple shrink plastic charms and consoling a girl who was sobbing mercilessly over her inability to draw the perfect giraffe’s tail (not an exaggeration) another seemingly sweet 8 year old girl who needed help had the nerve to ask me “Can’t you multi-task?”  3 seconds of jaw dropping shock later, and I was also punching holes in her charms. Don’t ask me where the third arm came from, I was too distracted to tell.

But really I do love those little creatures.  They seem to honestly enjoy our time together and seeing their excitement upon learning something new is quite magical. Today was actually a relatively calm day.. which I attribute completely to the presence of the toaster oven.  We were making Poly-shrink charms (glorified shrinky-dinks) and whenever I slid a batch in the oven, everything got quiet as 12 little bodies crammed their enraptured faces around the glowing glass door of the miniature oven to watch the shrinking magic.  Ah, 2 minute intervals of sweet bliss.

Between these intervals however, I found myself doing mainly two things.  1. burning myself on hot plastic as I shuffled rapidly from child to oven to child and attempted to remove the shrunken plastic from the hot pan in time with their commands anddd 2. marveling at how easily I was able to physically observe the mass transfer of germs from their bodies to mine in mere seconds.  One girl actually sneezed directly into my hands as I was helping cut her plastic.  I'm talking mouth 6 inches away and tangible spray on my palms.  7 minutes of hand washing and 14 pumps of antibacterial later and I was tying a knot in a cord that was handed to me directly from the mouth of another child. As in, she tried to tie it with her teeth...gave up...then handed it to me to finish the job.  "Here you go Miss Lauren" …Mmm thank you sweetie.

I should also mention that these are the same kids that sweetly explained to me the week before that they might be absent for the next class because everyone in school is sick and they will probably get sick too…I'm starting to think I might be lucky to be alive.

There's no craft class this week due to parent teacher conferences. I think I may use the time to devise some sort of  "divide and conquer" technique for next week.  We will be decoupaging treasure chests… which most likely means I'll leave with a lovely assortment of glue and paper stubbornly adhered to half my hair and completely coating my hands.  ...Till then