Craft-Impaired in a Crafty World

Over the next two weeks, my two older children are required to do the following:
1) Create a shirt covered in 100 of something to wear for the 100th day of school
2) Create a clothespin doll that represents our ancestory
3) Dress as an American hero
4) Dress as an immigrant from a country you won't know about until three days beforehand
5) Create a book report out of a cereal box

I'm the last parent who's gonna take on my kid's assignment as my own, but can a 6-year-old or even an 8-year-old pull these things off without a little parental intervention? Not if I don't want to take my son to school in his Batman pjs on "American Hero" day.

I had no idea that bringing babies into the world and enrolling them in public school committed me to spending half my life as an art director and costume designer. These are the things that wake me up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. I'm not Costume Mom. I'm not Craft Mom. I'm barely Make Homemade Snacks for Special Events Mom—and that's a stretch.

I admire and appreciate crafty women. My best friend Kendra, an über-crafter, constructed a quilt out of her old jeans. I marvel at such beings, but I know I'm not one of them. My old jeans are just going to Goodwill. I've never attended a MOPS meeting because, as a matter of principle, I don't understand why a group of women can't fellowship without pulling out a hot-glue gun.

I purchased my one-and-only hot-glue gun last year during a party at Addison's preschool. We were mid-party when the teacher declared that we must have hot glue in order to complete the craft. She asked me, of all people, to go buy a glue gun at the Walmart down the street. What was I going to say? So I found myself in the Walmart craft aisle, sweaty and bewildered at all my adhesive options, on my cell phone with Kendra, who tried to talk me through it. I paid for childcare for this and ended up missing most of the party, but at least those little snowmen had pom-poms securely affixed to the tops of their heads.

Fortunately, I married crafty. Kevin can do anything. Not only does he rewire all of our electrical outlets, he also sews on our missing buttons, repairs the Polly Pockets pants, and stayed up past midnight two years ago gluing 100 pennies—in the outline of the number "100"—onto a shirt for Braden's 100th day of school. He used not just a hot-glue gun, but graph paper, a calculator, and a pair of clamps from the garage. I did nothing but pray they stayed on during the festivities. I was also smart enough to store the shirt in a safe place so that I can check off item number one on the above list of dreaded activities.

It's so tempting to compare myself to other women—you know, the ones who hand-sewed their daughter's Martha Washington costume when I ordered ours off the Internet. But, hey, at least I've got good punctuation going for me.