How to Mom: Multicultural Day

So, a few weeks ago, Gracie brought home this huge Multicultural Day project.  She was super excited and wanted to start working on it right away, but I told her we had two weeks until it was due and we could wait a little while.  Fast-forward to this afternoon at 5:00pm (after I have had a hellacious day, of course) when Gracie comes in and announces that the projects were due today and she was the ONLY ONE without hers in class.  Excellent.

The first thing we had to do was figure out where our ancestors are from.  “Mine are from Florida,” Chris said.  Uhhh… those are relatives, not ancestors, dear.  But he kept insisting his family was just “from Florida” so he was no help.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t much better.  I have absolutely no idea where my ancestors are from.  Originally, I planned for us to have this really meaningful phone call with a grandparent asking them about where their family was from and learning all kinds of family stories and bits of information.

But, life.  So instead, I very confidently told Gracie that my ancestors were from Wales.  Is my family really from Wales?

No.  No, they are not.

In fact, I have no idea where my family is from.  But Wales just came to my mind and so I figured that was close enough.  I mean, honestly, it’s two weeks before summer and my brain is absolutely fried right now.  Someone could tell me I was Asian and I would go with that.

Gracie’s project was to make a doll that represented the culture of our “homeland” (hereafter known as Wales in my family).  So, we looked up Welsh culture and found this picture of a little girl in traditional Welsh-in clothes.  (Now I am just making up words.)  And that’s when the unfortunate craft project began.

Chris normally does our craft projects.  He’s more patient than I am and FAR MORE artistic.  But it was out running an errand tonight so it was all me and Gracie.  We started by cutting up an old baby doll dress.  And then we cut up a scarf.  And then an old winter glove. I texted Chris for support.

After we were elbow deep in dress scraps, I realized that we were out of any glue except Gorilla Glue (which doesn’t do well with fabric, in case y’all were wondering…  trust me…), so I broke out my stapler and just warned Gracie not to scratch herself when she presented her dangerous doll to her class tomorrow.

About halfway through, Gracie started to get a little worried.  “Mommy,” she said.  “You can’t see her eyes.”

“Oh,” I said.  “Well, let’s just cut more of the hat off.”

After half an hour, we were done.  Gracie just sat there staring at it for a minute and then shrugged her shoulders and said, “Looks fine.”

THAT’S MY GIRL.

The last part was “researching” our “homeland.”  Which, to be honest, I just had no energy to do.  So instead, I made up the history of Our People.  I told her our ancestors were dairy maids who turned milk into butter.  #momoftheyear

Next, she had to be able to explain the clothes on the doll, so I told her the shawl was because it was cold in Wales and the hat was because it rained a lot.  And, okay, so I didn’t ACTUALLY know any of this at all, but it totally COULD be true.

And then it was bedtime.

The End.

Moral of the Story:  Sometimes it’s okay to be mediocre.  High five yourself and move on.  *mic drop*