This week’s blog theme is “loving our children” (last week’s was “loving our husbands.”)  I’m not an expert on children by any stretch, but I’ve noticed, children spell love T.I.M.E.

It was the hundredth day of kindergarten today and by miracles my work schedule allowed me to go.  This is a huge treat for me, and even bigger for Brandon, my kindergartener.  There are some amazing mom’s in his class that volunteer every week.  My busy schedule means I just can’t be in his room as often.  He lets me know he notices.  He’s honest like that.

But today…today I was there.  At least my 100 year old self was:

And as silly as I felt, it was worth it, to see how happy it made him, knowing that today we are the same age.  (Which is probably just how God sees us.)  It’s hard to tell in this photo, but we both have white hair (from an over application of dry shampoo) and white eyebrows from a white eyeliner pencil. We used the same white eyeliner to make his mustache and a gray eye pencil for the wrinkles. We found the glasses at Dollar Tree.  The rest we just dug out of our closets.  Some of the kid’s outfits were so amazing!  Crocheted shawls, wigs, and tiny little canes.  (I wish I had permission to show you!)  It’s so funny how many details these little guys notice about adults.

We spent the morning in the cafeteria with the first grade.  There were 13 stations for them to explore what 100 means.  My station was threading 100 fruit loops on a necklace.  It was surprisingly hard for these little ones.  Only 2 students could finish in the 15 minute window.  It totally cracked me up how often they asked me how many they had on their string.  They’d slip on 5 and then say, am I done?  We did a lot of counting.  I told them 50 plus 50 is 100.  They thought I said 15 plus 15 is 100.  When I explained the difference, I thought they would faint.  Little eyeballs rolled back deep into their sockets.

Some of the other stations:

Doing a strenuous exercise for 100 seconds (whew!  that felt like a long time.) After which they got a snack of 1 wafer cookie and 2 oreos (which looks like 100.)

Using an ink pad to put 100 fingerprint spots on a dalmation

Making a paper chain with 100 links

Stacking 100 cups

Putting 10 stickers on each of 10 strips of paper and then sticking them to a crown band to make a hat.

Putting 10 groups of 10 objects on a placemat and then reading stories about 100 things.

Cutting out a 1 and 2 zeros from paper and then making it into a picture.

It was a great time with the kids staying active and well-behaved all morning.  I was exhausted by the end and ready to go home for a nap.  Those 100 year olds sure had a lot of energy.

Just for giggles, here’s a video of Brandon doing the old man shuffle when he was asked to hand out papers in the morning. Bwa ha ha.