Because I have an aversion to craft foam...

I got the big idea to not only man a booth at the Make-A-Craft fair at M's school on Saturday, but to actually provide the craft. So Thursday night found me bending dozens of pipe cleaners into little body shapes and, with the invaluable help of my knitting night friend Edna, cutting out little felt dresses and shirts. Friday night I made little signs for how to do the craft, threaded every embroidery needle I own, and secretly hoped my craft would look too complicated for anyone to try.

It didn't. Kids streamed through throughout the morning, some of them returning for a second go. Even the moms got into it--one mom snatched the little doll from her son's hands and two more came and made their own after business at their own booths died down.

While it was fairly easy to work one-on-one with a single kid, when three or four came along, it was madness. Even with the fifth-graders, while they could pretty much do the craft on their own, I had a constant queue waiting for knot-tying and needle-threading. Imagine teachers with 15 or 20 kids and they have to teach them to read and do long division and zip their coats?? Hats off to them, for sure. Anyone who complains about how much teachers get paid, or our student-teacher ratio at the next budget meeting should be forced to run a booth at the Make-A-Craft fair.

I had the kids with me and hoped M would take his brothers around to different booths, like our neighbor used to for M before he went away to high school, but M only wanted to run around with his buddy. After the first two hours there, E and Z finally got up enough nerve to go and try out crafts (and E won the cakewalk!).