Grandparents Day 2010

My kids attend a school with over the top parent involvement. I'm not complaining because I truly think this is a beautiful thing, however anytime there is a school function of any kind EVERYONE shows up! This becomes a lot of pressure for me because I would hate for my child to be the only one in his or her class that has nobody attend to represent them. David and I make a huge effort to be at everything along with everyone else.

Grandparents day is a little tricky! We don't have grandparents that live in Utah. One year I asked my Uncle Jay if he could go to grandparents day as a substitute grandparent. He was happy to go and the kids loved it! Last year David took the day off work and we went together as the grandparents of our future grandchildren. This went over really well. This year Jay couldn't go, David couldn't take off work, and I didn't have to guts to ask a grandparent from my ward to go, so it was up to me to represent my children.

I got to the school with a strategy. I would start at one end of the school and visit each kid until I got to the other end of the school. Once each child was visited I would then go in reverse order checking them out of class to go home early (because we know that this is what the kids really want and look forward to).

And so I began with
Carsten's class first.

Carsten was busy working on cutting out pictures. I walked up to him and he looked over at me with zero emotion and then went back to what he was doing. I asked him if he was wanting to be checked out and of course his answer was yes! We took this picture and I moved on.

When I walked into Reagan's room I had a similar experience. Reagan was sitting at a table writing a letter to her grandparents. She looked unimpressed to see me, we took this picture and I moved on.

Bradon was on the other side of the room with his back turned to me. He was playing a game of chess with some of his friends. I walked up behind them and asked if this was the group of kids without grandparents. Bradon turned around and simply said, "yes!" and then turned back to play his game. We snapped this picture and I was outta there!

When I got to Ethan's class nobody was there. The teacher informed me that they had gone to art but would be back any minute. I waited and 25 minutes later Ethan finally arrived. He took one look at me and said, "Why didn't you come sooner so that I wouldn't have had to go to art?"

Okay, I can see what I'm good for.... NOTHING!!!
These kids don't need me for anything but to check them out!

We made our rounds back through the school, checked each kid out, and then home we went! Very eventfull, very exciting, very much a waist of my time! Or at least that's how I felt!

HAPPY GRANDPARENTS DAY!