The Sticker Ninja

Yesterday was my first day as a classroom volunteer at Greta's school and though my inner child was kinda wigging out at the prospect of returning to the classroom after twenty-plus years away, I gotta tell ya, it was awesome!

I helped the kids with a craft project, Clorox wiped the tables after play time, and organized next week's math homework, but the highlight of the day was playing Sticker Ninja during quiet reading time. While the kids “read” books at their tables, my job was to walk around the room and place stickers on the hands of those that were being the most quiet. It was adorable! Even the pushy kids that kept thrusting their hands at me, silently pleading for stickers, were cute. They didn't get as many stickers as the kids who were actually quietly enjoying their books, but, trust me, everyone had stickers to spare by the time my “shift” ended.

I'm hoping to make the Thursday volunteer gig a regular thing, and in the meantime, I've also helped pass out donunts and bagels (at 7:45AM!) for a Breakfast with Buddies event and helped the kids work on a cool ocean mural on the back wall of the auditorium. It's been a lot of work but the parents, teachers and kids I've met along the way have all been awesome and Greta and I have been having a lot of fun. Even if we do collapse the minute we get home every day!

Speaking of things that exhaust me, one mom who I've seen at almost every event jokingly asked me when I was running for PTA president. Ha! Probably not in this lifetime, but, then again, President Yeti does have kind of a nice ring to it…

 

 

 

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“Star Wars” cupcakes!

I don’t know how they spell perfection in your neck of the woods, but, if you ask me, nothing says Father’s Day more than a big old batch of Star Wars cupcakes! Greta and Mrs. Yeti had actually purchased this very cool Star Wars Cupcake Decorating Kit: Galactic Empire for Father’s Day (or maybe my birthday, I can’t remember) at Williams-Sonoma a while back and we just finally got around to using it this past weekend.

Featuring environmentally-friendly soy ink — who says the dark side can’t be green? — on the Darth Vader and Stormtrooper cupcake liners and four different die-cut paper cupcake toppers (Darth Vader, Boba Fett and two different Stormtroopers) the set also comes in a super-cool display box that Star Wars nerds like me will enjoy looking at for hours!

But best of all, these decorations are so cool that they make even store bought cupcakes made from a mix look totally homemade. That’s right, Daddy still likes his Duncan Hines or Pilsbury (whichever’s on sale…I ain’t fancy!) yellow cake mix and chocolate fudge frosting the best.

So, happy belated Father’s Day to all the Star Wars geeks out there. Oh, and if you prefer your cupcakes to be decorated with characters from the good side of the Force, Williams-Sonoma also makes a kit featuring Luke, Leia, Han Solo and Yoda. So, whichever way you lean…enjoy!

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Watching vs. Documenting

A friend of mine who has a son around Greta’s age gave me some really great advice recently. He said that over the years he realized that he spent so much time documenting his son’s soccer games, music recitals, etc., that he had never actually seen his son do anything. You know, in real time with his naked eyes.

So, the next time his son had an event, my friend left his iPhone and camera in his backpack and actually watched his son perform — no camera, no zoom, no video, no flash, just straight up watching — and it was magical. So, last Thursday at Greta’s annual ballet class parent viewing day I did the same thing.

As you can see, I still took a few pictures here and there, but, for the most part I simply watched my daughter dance and it was lovely. Seriously, I never knew what I was missing…Greta was amazing!

If you haven’t tried it yet for yourself, I highly recommend you do. Handing off the camera to someone else (or even just not taking pics or video) and actively watching your kid perform is pretty damn incredible. Try it!