Reason # 389 I don't enjoy scrapbooking or anything remotely like it

I love (really, seriously) Adam's preschool, his teachers, the director, the church, the program, and all the cool things he gets to do and learn.  But it's high hilarity when Adam is sent home with "homework" because this really means I  have homework to get done.

This weekend, Flip the classroom stuffed frog-puppet was sent home to play.  Adam was to document Flip's adventures via one scrapbook page in the traveling "Flip's Adventure's" 3-ring binder with anecdotes and (preferably!) photos (Adam's not allowed to touch my camera).  Since Adam's not allowed to touch the camera and since Mommy loves to touch the camera, we did a very fine job if I do say so myself, of documenting Flip's "adventures" with the Stewart Snippets. 

Then came time to complete the scrapbook page.  I hemmed and hawed over which of my fabulous photos would best represent Flip's time here and finally decided on my fave 5.  Here's where the angst begins...would you have considered whether 5 4x6s fit appropriately on a green piece of construction paper before printing them out?  Well, I didn't.  So now I've got these 5 pictures and I'm bound and determined to use them because, well darnit, I decided they were the good ones I wanted to use - they were cute and funny and representative of Flip's flippin' time with us. 

But I also have to somehow describe what went on.  So I typed this up:

 

Hi Friends!  As you can see from the photos my Mommy took throughout the past few days, Flip picked an exciting weekend to come visit me and my family!   

He was here while we carved our Halloween jack o' lanterns and he came with me to watch my Daddy's team's football game!  You can see me and Flip posing on the field while the team huddles up to celebrate their WIN!!   

My brother and sister and I liked to play catch with Flip.  We were gentle and he didn't seem to mind.   

There are lots of toys hanging around the Stewart household all the time and Mommy caught Barbie hanging out with Flip one day (she thinks Barbie looks a little starstruck, don't you?) 

We can't wait to hear about more of Flip's adventures as he takes turns visiting the rest of the classmates.

Clever little captions to match the photos I'd picked.  Well, now I'm really in a quandry - the pictures barely fit; how am I to also include the text?  I wanted the text to be near the photo it represented but that was the first "Oh, hell, who cares" moment.  I decided to cut the captions into little slips and just glue them on whereever they would fit.  I cut first and measured later (always a bad idea) and couldn't fit the last caption (i.e., We can't wait to hear about more of Flip's adventures....).  Second "Oh hell, who cares" moment.

I finally get everything laid out, taped, and glue sticked down and I'm a happy enough camper.  Some of the strips aren't cut with exactly square edges but I'd like to chalk that up to the happy disability my dad and his father before him passed down to me.  It's called Essential Tremor.  I really don't have it that bad (though I did look it up in preparation to write this post and I must say, I hope it doesn't worsen significantly as I age because it sounds like a real downer).  Thank goodness cameras have Steady Shot features these days.

Anyway, I digress.  "Oh hell, that's good enough" and I go to slip my scrapbook page into the plastic liner.  WTH?!  It doesn't fit.  Apparently construction paper is larger than I thought.  The parents who finished their projects before me seem to have figured that out beforehand and cut their papers to size.  Third "Oh hell, who cares" moment and I briefly consider just laying my construction paper within the 3-ring binder and being done with it.  Then a light bulb goes off and I remember I actually have a 3-hole punch in my cupboard.  I whip it out and smartly snap three.....half moons into the side of my painstakingly completed scrapbook page.  Fourth "Oh hell, who cares moment".  I consider just laying it in there and leaving it, looking like something gnawed on the project. 

Yes, that's currently the only clear tape we have in the house.  Yes, it also looks like something gnawed on it, but it works.

Awash in Mommy Guilt, I can't do it.  I move the pictures over as far as I can and punch again (hello? didn't I learn in second grade that once you screw up a hole punch, you're not going to be able to fix that particular situation?).  Now I've punched a hole through the edge of one of the 5 photos I agonized over.  Now I'm starting to get a little perturbed.  I move all the pictures away from the damaged edge of the construction paper and attempt to cut a straight line through the paper and the edge of the captions that are just white-space.  NOW my scrapbook page fits into the clear plastic sleeve.  But it hangs out the top by almost two inches. Fifth "Oh hell, who cares moment".  And I'm done.  Good 'nuff, I say! 

As it turns out, Adam probably could have done a better job on his Flippin' project than Mommy did anyway.  Harumph.  And, as I preview it, I can't even get my blog post to do as it's told...I've tried several times to fix the font and I now officially give up on this project AND it's retelling.  Goodbye.