I hate it when the parents do the work and the kids get the credit. That really, really sucks. It's a bad deal all round, IMO.
I only did the actual work for any of the kids ONCE. It was the day Ben had to wear a costume to school, dressed as an historical Greek character, I can't remember the guy's name but he was a real explorer. I was working on the case from hell, and thought that the costume was under control because Ben told me it was. That morning, before school, he tearfully showed me how he couldn't shove his 6th-grade body into a set of play armor we bought when he was in the second grade ~ he'd never thought to try it on before. I managed to create a very credible costume in about an hour, it would have taken me less time but I drove to the craft store twice, once for bronze spray paint to spray on a short-sleeve cotton shirt of mine to make it into a tunic, and once to get face paint, which he also thought he had, but couldn't find, and I also bought a rope and some plastic grapes on a plastic grapevine. He wore my black leggings, a pair of his father's white gymsocks pulled over the leggings, a pair of his father's Birkenstock sandals, my erstwhile blouse as a tunic, a rope wrapped around his waist, his armor helmet with bronze grapes and grapevines festooning it, and his armor shield and sword, and a black facepaint beard. He was about an hour late for school, and he's never done anything quite like that to me again. He also got applause for his costume. |
