crazy hat day

The lovely daycare/preschool that the geekykids attend often has a "theme" day, usually on Fridays. Pajama day, backwards day, costume day, crazy hair day, beach day (where they can wear their swimsuits to school. Great for one kid, Rowan, who wears his swimming trunks most days anyway). Tomorrow is 'crazy hat day'.

I have about a fifty percent record of remembering that it is theme day. Oh, the shame of dropping of an unadorned child when almost all of the others have their hair exotically styled or their spiderman costumes on. My kids never seem all that bothered, to be honest, but I feel bad for them, so obviously the children of parents who don't care enough to put these special occasions on the calender. No one wants to feel left out, and I really don't want my children to be in that situation.

This being a full time daycare, almost all of the kids have two full time working parents, so I can't even pull the "I'm so busy working AND being a mum that I don't have time to remember this frivolousness" card. Everyone is busy. The parents are a pretty amazing bunch of people. I must accept that most parents are just better organized than I am. Mostly the mums, I suspect. Geekydaddy is a truly amazing partner and dad, but he doesn't seem to have the mental capacity for this type of minutiae. If you show me a dad who remembers that it is costume day at preschool, or equivalent I'll send you a prize. I, however am determined to improve my performance in this area.

I got a heads up this week thanks to facebook. A fellow mum posted pics of some beautifully adorned headwear that wouldn't have looked out of place on the catwalk, and though I seethed with envy at her millinery skill, I made a mental note to decorate hats this evening. I had another stroke of luck in that Geekydaddy's friend and co worker just gave us a bounty of old clothes and accessories from her daughter, which included several hats.

I breathed a sigh of relief that I would be able to get hats ready tonight, without having to make any shopping expeditions, then realized that though I had pom poms, glitter, fabric and other decorative items, I had no glue. With a stroke of brilliance I asked daycare to lend me a bottle of Elmer's, and this evening after dinner we had a lovely time selecting and decorating 'crazy hats' for tomorrow.

Pulling this off did cause my professional life to clang up against motherhood again. I don't know about you but despite iPhones and laptops, the only way I can be sure to actually remember something is to write it on the back of my hand. So after a great meeting with my new boss, where I believe I intelligently discussed strategy and science, she interrupted me to say "I'm sorry, but I have to ask, why do you have "hats" and "glue" written on your hand?"

Here are the results. Maybe I'll show my boss tomorrow!