Labor of Love

Have you ever gotten so obsessed over a project that you threw logic to the wind and dove face first into sleep deprivation over it?

Me too.

Meet my most recent obsession:  The Socktopus.

In Grayson's class, parents are invited to teach a lesson for their Letter of the Week.

It took me a long time to work up the nerve to sign up for a letter to teach.  Like four months.  I know.  I'm not even sure how I leave the house most days.

Why be nervous to teach kindergartners?  Because there are 26 of them and two of me.  Abby and me, that is.  The math is not in our favor and I know myself well enough to realize my strengths (snuggling, laying down, kissing dogs) do not match up with my weaknesses (teaching, wearing real pants, loud places).

After giving this volunteer lesson much thought, I came across the cutest idea for the Letter O.

The Golden Jelly Bean Blog, click here s'il vous plait.

I figured, if the kids had this awesome little cephalopod to make, there wouldn't be much room for me to screw up the teaching part, right?

So wrong.

Because I didn't describe the steps at all whatsoever well, these poor babies barely had enough time to stuff their socks much less cut the sock up with their school scissors.  Most ended up with two tentacles or fourteen shredded limbs.  Only because their temporary leader failed them.  I planned to have them glue their eyes first, leaving the more difficult cutting-of-the-legs part up to me.  Then, in the heat of the classroom moment, their teacher cheerfully asks, "Do you want them to cut the tentacles now?"

To which I classroom cheerfully replied, "Yes, that would be great!"

When what I really meant was OhHellNo, the legs are too hard.  There are pipe cleaners, PIPE CLEANERS!!

Needless to say, the tentacle aftermath was intense.  I was not prepared.  Some made it through without serious injury. Many, however, were not as lucky and required major surgery.  A few suffered amputations, or the much less desired, tentacle wrap-arounds.

I have a new appreciation for people who work with heat.  Never have I singed off so much of my own skin in all my years.  After a while, you kind of lean into the pain and forget to remove the searing metal nose from your forefinger right away.  If you meditate enough on each rote move, the pain is relative.  Crazy, I'm guessing, is too. 

 

Oh, did I mention the lesson took so long that I asked to complete them myself at home?  You know, in all my free time that hasn't existed since 2006 and downright disappeared altogether come 2008?

Squeezing in tentacle operations here and there plus the going rate of thirty minutes per Socktopus, all 26 Socktopuses took me a full week, one tube of Neosporin, and all of my sanity.

But man, aren't they adorable with their curly little legs?

 

 I kind of miss them.

I would do it all over again.

 Goodbye, my little squids.

As long as I still don't have to teach in a real classroom with organized thought and tons of mental preparation.

That, I have to work up to.

As soon as I get out of my comfy pants.