Celebrating grandparents

Well the much heralded Grandparents Day program finally takes place tomorrow. Much blood (a few nasty paper cuts), sweat (our room's air conditioning hasn't worked for the last two weeks), and tears (not every grandparent is able to come) have gone into making this the biggest event since, well, last year's Grandparents Day program. The poems have been written, the skits have been practiced, and the coffee filter flowers are ready to be unveiled. Today we made our final craft, a lookalike that was made to resemble one of the grandparents that would be coming tomorrow. They'll be hanging around the room and at the end of the program the grandparents will walk around and try to figure out which one is theirs.

* After looking at the grandparent lookalike that she made out of construction paper, yarn, and wiggly eyes, one of the girls morbidly said "I'm secretly going to put this in her casket when she dies." Yes, a pink faced caricature with a pig nose and eyeglasses the size of Lake Michigan is what every rotting corpse needs.

* Most of the students always get excited the closer Grandparents Day gets. They want everything they make to be perfect and continually go on and on about how amazing their grandparents are. It's actually really sweet to listen to. However, today I overheard a girl whisper to a boy at her table "My grandma is retarded." All I could do was pray that she didn't write that line in her letter to her grandmother. "I love you because you are such a retard." When the boy asked why she said that, she responded "Well she ran over her dog on the way to pick up her friend for bingo."

* I noticed that one of the boys had colored in small circles in the center of both of his grandpa's hands. When I asked him what they were he said that his grandpa had round scars in the palms of both hands. If his grandpa is Jesus, well then I'd better get my act together before tomorrow. By the way, does the Lord like Oreos?

* While they were putting the finishing touches on their lookalikes a boy asked if he could use the rest of his yarn to make a moustache. I said yes and then added rather jokingly to only do this if you were making a grandpa and not a grandma. A sweet girl across the room, in all manner of seriousness, raised her hand and said "Well Mr. Ritchason my grandma does have a moustache." I cautioned her against adding this last detail as I wouldn't be able to contain myself if tomorrow the girl pointed out "Grandma, that's yours up there. Ya, the one with the caterpillar above her lip."