The jig is up.

It happened yesterday. I've been officially crowned "The Artistic Mommy" by Liam's teacher. During the first week of school, when they send home a million and three forms to fill out? One of them was a volunteer sheet. I glanced at it longingly and put it aside. For you see... I have a three year old. Who is not yet in school. Therefore he is my constant companion. Also? He's totally unbalanced and likes to live his life pants-free. Three years old + unbalanced + pants-free = not a good person to bring along when you're trying to volunteer and actually get something done.

So. I didn't fill out the volunteer form. But then, they hit me with a sneak attack. A little form, only half a page, that asks parents to list their workplaces that may be of interest to the kids on Career Day or just in general. I didn't list my freelancing out of the computer room in our house because I figured no one really wanted to see the computer room in our house. I don't want to see the computer room in our house. But of course I had to put Rusty's job down. He works at NASA and gets super cool space stuff (super cool enough that when he brought home holographic postcards of the sun for Liam's pre-school class? I was totally bummed that there weren't enough for me to get one). Plus? Rusty's best friend works at NASA and his friend's son is in Liam's class as well. I figured knowing them they'd go all tag-team for Career Day. After filling in Rusty's info? I saw it. The line asking about hobbies. "Do you have any hobbies that you would be willing to share with the class?". Hobbies? Please.

Let me pause here and explain some thing. Prince George's County schools do not employ art teachers at each school. I did not know this until parent-teacher conferences with Liam's teacher in kindergarten last year. We were told they have a "traveling" art teacher who does different schools on different days. Which would be ok, in theory. But Liam's teacher went on to say that she hadn't seen the traveling art teacher in at least three years. Stop the insanity! My child - my artistic little drawing dude - didn't have art class. It was up to individual teachers to provide art time. Which is a bit much to ask these teachers who are already providing extra school supplies out of their own money and way more of their time than they actually get paid for. Plus? Some people just aren't into art so they don't see it as a real necessity (can you imagine?).

Anyway. With that in mind, I went ahead and listed my art degree and hobbies as book-binding/book-making, stamping, collage, scrapbooking and then ran out of space (sadly, I didn't get room to mention "blow-torching in the name of art"). I figured I'd get a note home during certain "crafty" times of the year - Halloween pumpkins, Thanksgiving turkeys, Christmas... that kind of thing. But she has already called me on my offer to help. And it's totally not holiday related, so I'm guessing Liam's teacher is one who feels that the kids do need some art in their lives on a regular basis (Yay, Liam's teacher!). So now, the big question. Will lower-body paint for Sean be seen as bad parenting or just artistically eccentric?