Wine & Glue & 100 Days of School

I need gray hair spray.

And a flannel shirt.

And maybe suspenders, I guess.

My son is supposed to dress up like his 100 year-old self, as are all of the kids in his class. You know, for the 100th Day of School celebration, of course.

I have a few questions about this — let me start here:

When did this become a thing? And, more importantly: Why?

Last year, when he was in Kindergarten, I thought the 100th Day of School was an isolated and cute little idea. It was a sweet reason to celebrate your kid’s education and achievements. And then it quickly became far less cute and not so sweet as I found myself separating various shapes of pasta into 100 pieces to be glued onto a giant poster board — in the formation of a volcano.

I might have started cursing somewhere around the 61st piece and it was downhill from there. If I could have produced actual hot lava for this volcano, my first order of business would have been to throw myself into it.

This wasn’t cute — it was stupid. Of course I didn’t say so, but even my then five year-old son was cynical about the point of all this.

I told him with forced enthusiasm that his 100 Days project was really coming together. And wasn’t he excited for the crown?

The crown?

Yes! A crown! You get to wear it all day at school tomorrow.

Why?

Because it’s the 100th day of school!

Oh. So, it’s the last day? School’s over?

Uh, no, silly! It’s only February!

Is it close to the last day?

Not exactly, honey.

How many days are left, then?

80. I think the school has to be open 180 days.

So what’s the party for again?

The 100th day! {OMG, I can’t keep this up much longer. My face hurts from this false excitement. Wow, my eyebrows are actually cramping from their overly arched position. Is that possible?}

We get a party and a crown?

Yep!

Uh, because we’ve gone to school?

For 100 days!

Uh huh.

Buddy, I think there will be cookies too!

Cookies?

Yes!

OK, fine. A cookie party for going to school all these days.

Great! Let’s finish gluing the last 39 pieces of pasta onto this board! 

{Giant glass of wine is refilled by hand covered in glue/pasta mixture. Side note: Why have I not glued my wine glass to my hand before? It really is far more efficient than the whole put down/pick back up routine.}

* * * * *

And I thought that was the end of this nonsense. I thought that the hand glued to my wine glass would not need to complete another such project once we entered first grade.

And then my son came home last week with an ominously blank long-ass strip of poster board. What in the fresh hell was this?

This, it turns out, was the canvas upon which we were to cut and glue 100 words he can read. For the big celebration.

Another year, another chance to formally glue my wine glass to my hand. And so we searched for the 100 words to cut. I wondered how obvious it would be that 90% of our clippings were from the Babies R Us catalog:

Red

Hot

Sale

Or from Us Weekly:

Who

Wore

It

Best

We glued. We filled the poster board. 100 words. It did look good, I have to say.

And there was some relief in not having to invent our own project for this. Although, if you find yourself wondering just how you’d like to creatively produce a masterpiece of 100 random items, fear not: There are entire Pinterest boards dedicated to this pursuit, complete with custom t-shirts and the like. You know, when 100 buttons in a snack-sized Ziploc bag won’t suffice, and you don’t really want to part with your collection of 100 wine corks. For sentimental reasons. Hypothetically.

But we’re not done. Now we must dress my son like he is 100 years old for the celebration. I’m thinking a flannel shirt with a photo of how I look in the morning ought to do it.

Not to be left out of anyfuckingthing this winter, the Polar Vortex played a role in the party: Namely, we can’t seem to actually get to the blessed 100th Day of School because of the endless snow days.

When it does happen, sometime around mid-July at this rate, I do hope the kids will make good use of their 100th Day celebration and make crowns for the ones who really deserve them: The parents.

Because:

• 100 packed lunches.
• 100 battles over {insert clothing item here}.
• 100 mornings of miraculously getting everyone out the door on time.

But, hey, only 80 more days to go.

Pass the wine glass with the glue, please.