Making it out of school alive (or Z to A month)

My kids do great in school. They make good grades, love to learn, have fun absorbing information like a sponge, and they both have wonderful, caring teachers this year, to boot.

So why do I have to dress them up like zebras, then have them bring in yo-yos, then Wheat Thins, and then wear velcro, and today wear University of Florida gear...

and then,

guys, it doesn't stop.

The first grade is doing this lovely little TWENTY-SIX DAY project called Z-A. And every day the girls have to do something different for the letter as addressed on the cutesy calendar the school sent home.

And I'm doing it, I really am. I'm a great mom, I swear. I even sent my kid to school today in one of my old Gator sweatshirts because we have NO gator clothes. I am committed.

But I am already tired.

And on top of it, it is teacher appreciation week (which I feel is much more important), so we're picking flowers off the roadside and making baseball cupcakes and other adorable snacks to celebrate our teachers. We're giving dollar bills in envelopes marked "room parents". We're bending over backward here, as parents, just as the end of the year sludge is trying to kick in full force. It is HARD.

I have another three weeks of letters and never has the alphabet seemed so long.

Superhero day, red day, orange day, queen day (girls wear crowns?). We don't have any superhero t-shirts, or red ones or orange ones. We might not have two working crowns. I'm dying over here.

I love the creativity. I love the idea. As an idea. As a thing that first graders do for an endless period of time, not so much. This is a lot of work for the parents, and probably a lot of work for the teachers. My kids would have been fine without it. What they don't know exists doesn't harm them.

Next year, in second grade, I hope we do a whole lot of nothing at the end of the year.

Please?