Dioramas and soggy snowmen

by
Patti Dickinson


Hilarious essay in the newpaper this morning. The gist of the article was that as your kids grow, you ought to be holding back pictures of them at all ages and stages for when you hit those elementary school years where they have to do a time-line of their lives, with a picture to go with every event. This woman says that it will save you lots of tearing-your-hair-out time in the years to come -- ransacking through attic boxes, calling grandma to see if you can borrow-back all the pictures on her refrigerator that you gave her over the years. Good common sense, spoken like a mom who has been around the block a few times.

But I would take that pre-planning thing a step further. Never, EVER throw away a shoebox. These are used with regularity in the elementary classroom. No self-respecting elementary teacher lets a kid out of their classroom without assigning a diorama.

Dioramas. I can feel a migraine coming on at just the near mention. Always entails a trip to Hobby Lobby to purchase Indians, horses, fake dirt or grass. Popsicle sticks. Trees that you construct yourself. And aluminum foil to make a lake in the middle. And lots of glue. A special kind of glue that won't make the box soggy.

Reminds me of a party craft that the room moms came up with one year for the Christmas party in a second grade classroom. The idea was to make snowmen. Felt snowmen. I took the pattern (sight unseen) and said that I would cut the stuff out. Little did I know that there were no fewer than 10 pieces (I am counting each button as it's own individual piece!!) The head, the body, the legs. The scarf, the black buttons for the front, mittens and the hat. It took me twelve hours to get the cutouts done. And three different pairs of scissors, because the felt starts to just shred when the scissors aren't sharp enough.

So --- party day dawns. We are set. Snowman pieces, Elmer's and enough enthusiasm to carry us through. Thirty kids in groups of four, and a parent with each group to facilitate the gluing process. So we glued the head to the body and the body to the legs. Then we glued the scarf to the neck, the buttons to the front and the hat to the head. But wait.....it's not sticking. So we do what any desperate room mom would do, to the sounds of 30 whiny voices saying, "Mine isn't working right." She tries to use MORE glue. And then maybe just a little bit more (Elmer's used to work!!!) Finally these snowmen are weighing in at about five pounds each. Four and seven-eighths pounds for the glue. We now have 30 sopping wet snowmen, nothing is sticking to anything and a bunch of moms with sweat beads on their upper lips and expressions of complete frustration. Moral of the story: Felt will not stick to anything with Elmer's. This is a project for a glue gun.