See What My Mummy Uses at Home

I think this post is going to make all of you a lot more sympathetic to the teacher I cribbed about in the previous entry. Cookie (that's what we call the little one at home) had her first bit of homework yesterday: bring pictures of two objects used in your house, for a class collage. Me being the aspiring modern mom, ignored the fact that the message was addressed to the parents and decided to turn it into a project. My rationale being, what is she going to talk about if she doesn't choose the objects herself.

So, step one was deciding where we were going to get the pictures from. The only solution I came up with was cutting them out of a magazine. Now, in our house we get two magazines:

• A magazine for entrepreneurs, which both of us read and also refer to for ideas. I couldn't destroy the back issues as we may need it going forward. In addition, I didn't think they would have too many pictures of household objects.
• Cosmopolitan which, again, both of us read. (Hubby when he's really stressed out and needs to laugh at us silly girls, or so he claims. Now you know his little secret) So my precious Cosmo it was. My logic being, this being a girlie magazine it has to have some practical women related advertisements. Plus, what other choice did I have. 

These are the pictures my little angel went for:

• A pot of Bodyshop's Body Butter - I totally approved of this, what could be more useful (and indulgent)
• A mug full of low-fat vanilla latte - which she insisted on calling "hazelnut mocha with skim please"
• A pink and violet fully loaded hair dryer - I have a blue one, so close enough. She loves to watch me dry my hair and get a second of drying too
• A tube of Neutrogena hand cream
• A bottle of Vaseline for Men body lotion - we really have this at home. She shares it with her dad and declares that she "loves her daddy smell"
• A bottle of Tide washing powder - this too has a place in our house
• A plate of double fudge cookies - I kept trying to get her to focus on the plate and not the cookies, to no avail
• The Burberry Summer perfume for men - she did gift this to her dad on his birthday
• A small pot of MAC shimmer eyeshadow - my mom loves MAC products
• A designer backpack - she claimed it was her Dora school bag

We finally decided on the Tide bottle (me), the mug (me), the hair dryer (her), the backpack (her) and the pot of Bodyshop Body Butter (her). Hope her teacher thinks that we like to get involved in our projects rather than that we are indecisive, considering the instructions said two objects.

When we were packing the cutouts into the pages of her notebook, one of them fell the wrong side up on the floor. When I bent down to pick it up, instead of an image I saw the words "show him your wild side". That's when I realized, pictures cut from a girlie magazine will have racy articles on the reverse. Picture her teacher seeing that along with her choice of products and imagining a house where we throw money away on luxury brands and swan around in fancy negligees all day. So we had to stick the pictures on white chart paper and cut along the curvy edges to create faux collage worthy cutouts.

Don't know if I'll be so excited about her next project. Maybe I'll just send her to bed and do it myself.

Worst Mother in School

Summer is over in our part of the world and my daughter went back to school today. Technically her play school opened yesterday, however we had our company's soft launch and I wanted her to be there for it. The little one has moved from 'Playgroup' to 'Nursery' and she was all excited about seeing her friends.  So I was prepared for a few tears at the most. This is what actually happened.

The moment our car stopped in front of her school gate, she claimed that her feet were tired and I should carry her. Since I anticipated spending some time inside settling her down and didn't want to be late for work, I just decided to give in and carry her. When we stepped in we were asked to go over and get her temperature checked (not with a thermometer, it was some sort of handheld device that they aim at your forehead) and clean our hands with a sanitizer. Apparently, there's been some concern over kids coming back from summer vacations with some nasty viruses. Now my daughter loves using the sanitizer, so imagine my surprise when she started screaming her head off while at the same time trying to climb up onto my shoulders!

Things just got worse when I carried my wailing child into her new classroom and she refused to get down and greet her best friend, who I must admit was looking stunned. I finally handed her over to the nanny who assists the teachers and was preparing to exit, when her new class teacher caught me:

Teacher: Your daughter didn't come in yesterday. She missed the first day.

Me: Eeeehhhh, yes. I'm sorry.

Teacher: This is going to make it tougher for her to settle in.

Me: I'm sorry, we had an important family event which I didn't want her to miss. (I understand, bit I see plenty of kids crying today as well. Plus, yesterday was only half an hour, the same as today.)

Teacher: You don't want her falling behind, do you. Unless a child is sick, she shouldn't be missing classes.

Me: I will try to keep that in mind. (Well it's not like she's missing advanced math or physics. All these kids do is play, colour, dance, learn a few basic concepts and have a snack. I'm sure I can help her with whatever she's missed.)

Teacher: Didn't you also miss the orientation program for parents last week.

Me: Yes, I'm sorry. (What do you expect me to do since it was on a weekday at 12 pm. Plus I got all the material beforehand and was prepared in advance.)

A very subdued me, kissed her sniffling baby goodbye and walked out, thinking 'I'm with you sweetie, I liked your previous teacher better too'.

Am I really that bad a mother? In my defense I spent the whole summer travelling 20 extra kilometers, so that my baby could go to the best summer camp in the city. And my husband or me were always there to drop and pick her up. I also participated in all the parent child activities, even though it meant taking a half-day off on quite a few occasions.

What do other working mom's do? Can someone give me ideas on dealing with teachers who hate working moms.