Our church is hosting a Vacation Bible School this summer, as most do, and to assuage my guilt and feelings of inadequacy at being totally unable to voluntarily choose to spend my time with large collections of other people’s kids, I volunteered to do some of the prep work. I can cut, I figured – how hard can it be?
I guess I didn’t really know what was involved, and I’m glad I volunteered because no one should be stuck doing that alone, but let me give you a sample of my first cutting project:
-stacks of bristol board starfish and octopi and tentacles
-180 20″ lengths of plastic lacing
-90 5″ lengths of plastic lacing tied in slippery little knots
-180 felt octopus eyes (octopeyes?)
-90 felt octopus mouths
-felt flip-flop straps
-assorted eensy shapes to combine to make eensy balls
That was the first week.
Thankfully Carl was willing to be recruited and rigged up a fancy system to make the lacing spin so he could pull and cut continuously, undoubtedly making it much faster than it would have been if I had done it! If only his fingers weren’t too big to tie knots, since that is especially not my forte – I’m bad enough I even got out of the job for my own wedding invitations.
It was somewhat rewarding to see my stacks go into neatly shaped bits of crafts, in organized, labelled baggies, and I’ve only got a few things left, and those teeny knots to tie. I’m notorious for leaving the worst jobs for last and putting them off till the last minute, and then when I finally get to them finding they aren’t that bad at all…here’s hoping this is one of those times!
Regardless, feelings of guilt and non-nurturing inadequacy: successfully assuaged.
Mission accomplished!
ahahaha I just can’t stop laughing Anna! Last year I went through exactly the same feeling; since I couldn’t help out during VBS I decided to help out with the prep work for the crafts. I too went through the same shock about how much there was to cut out and how much time it would take (and yes, I had to recruit my hubby as well:)) I say we hold a pity (or celebration) party for ourselves and eat an entire Raspberry Cheesecake? YAY for you for helping out!
HAHA, now we both know! We should definitely have a pity/celebration/cheescake party – and next year we can have a cutting party together ;)
Hahahaha! Last year I was the one handing out that crummy job for VBS at our church. This year we didn’t ‘get around’ to organizing (: I sometimes wonder about those crafts. SO MUCH work goes into them and if the kids are like mine….the nice bag from VBS gets dumped in file G after about a week. I loved the VBS one year where we made crafts that were practical and functional and GAVE THEM AWAY to seniors etc. Perfect! Have fun and you did make life a lot easier for the craft people. Now they just have to figure out how to link the octupusy craft with the Bible story and make it oh so meaningful for the preschool/elementary child who when asked what the day was about will say ‘we had purple juice and my friend picked a big booger out of his nose.’ Seriously! What are we thinking with these overblown VBS curriculums? They are insane!
I agree, it seems a shame for all the work when it really isn’t for anything lasting…giving useful things to others is a great idea!
Funny! I don’t like the prep work but would take care of a large group of kids…BTW, it gets pretty easy once you’ve had 4 of them. ;-)
I disagree. I had 5 kids of my own and taught classrooms full (1 year I had 38 grade 7 students with no such thing as a teacher’s aid), but I understand and can relate to Anna’s discomfort. Comfort zones only reach so far.