Thread by @hamilton_humans

It's Show and Tell Day at kindy today. My 4-year-old frickin' loves kindy, and she LOVES show and tell.

Let me explain how much she loves kindy.

On a normal day she'll wake up and, before even eating breakfast, set herself up on the Teacher Chair for a bit of pretend mat time.

The Teacher Chair is the kid-sized arm chair. Next to it you can see the table of Teacher Supplies, like pens for making notes about the naughty kids, stickers for rewarding the good kids, and the Teacher iPod for music time.

And she'll sit on the Teacher Chair and conduct music time, or get a picture book, point it out towards the class and pretend to read it. (She can't actually read, but that doesn't stop her.)

Or she'll say "Ok, tamariki, today we're going to learn about..."
And she'll look around the room and see something like the table and chairs and say something like, "...sitting at the table for dinner".

Or she might involve the other chair in the photo. That's the chair for the children. Maybe it's someone's birthday, or their last day at kindy, so they get to sit next to the teacher.

There's a lot of different stuff for a a pretend teacher to do before breakfast.

Anyway, during all of this, here's the view from the Teacher Chair. See all the naughty kids, and good kids, and birthdays and stuff? Yeah.

So that's before breakfast.

A little while after all that pretend kindy, she goes to actual kindy. I'm not 100% certain that she knows that she isn't a member of staff there. Her stories from actual kindy tend to involve "the children", as if she's not one of them.

So she goes to actual kindy, then comes home.

You can probably guess where she spends most of her time when she gets here.

In the afternoons the Teacher iPod tends to come out for Music Time. Never, ever doubt the power of a kid's imagination, because this thing keeps her dancing (in her seat, mind you - we don't want to lose control of the class) for hours.

So, yeah, this kid loves kindy.

This is the older one, by the way. We had two close together in the hope that they'd grow up as a pair and share interests.

So far we have one who spends most of the day as a middle-aged educator and the other still in nappies.

Now, if kindy is already great could anything make it greater?

How about one day every week where my little girl gets a real life audience as she discusses whatever she wants? Show And Tell Day Is The Best Thing.

You know show and tell, right? It's when you get something interesting from home, take it to school of kindy, and introduce your friends to a thing they might not already know about.

Only problem is that my darling daughter is a little hazy on the boundary between "interesting" and "mundane". And she shows absolutely no respect for the idea of "one thing".

It got to the point where we couldn't close her bag on Show and Tell Day because it was so full of everyday household items.

I knew we'd lost parental control the day a bunch of unsuspecting toddlers were shown my old toothbrush, with some sort of informative commentary.

On Show and Tell Day now, she takes two bags. One with all the stuff she needs to get through the day, and one just for Show and Tell.

I've apologised to her teachers, but they were very nice about it.

Turns out they do show and tell in groups, and they always make sure that my little girl is teamed up with all the kids who forgot to bring stuff.

Anyway, it's been turning into more and more of a random scavange for stuff every time she tries to fill the bag.

But sometimes I'm a Clever Daddy. The longer she has to assemble her weekly collection of whatever she can find, the worse it gets.

This morning I waited until the last possible moment. "Darling, we're leaving in 2 minutes. Have you remembered Show and Tell?"

Brilliant.

Briliant, that is, if I was actually in control. But no. Becasue there's not just the one kid in the house.

Just as the older one is asking whether she can put her breakfast plate in her show and tell bag, the little one looks at me with a very serious face.

"I got a big nappy poo."

You don't need details. You just need to know that my full attention was required, very urgently, elsewhere. For quite a while.

If you're not a parent yet, and you think that one day you might be a reusable nappy family, I applaud you and urge you to do it.

Just buy a really, really good scrubbing brush first. One with a long handle.

Anyway, the older one had a good 7 minute window to herself.

And so I'd like to apologise to the parents of the kids who forgot to take their own show and tell stuff today, because they will have been at my girl's table.

And this is what they will have heard all about:

1. One pair of children's sunglasses, standard-issue from the cheapest shelf in K-Mart.

2. One used "4" birthday candle, which half the class will have already seen at a party 10 days ago.

3. The cover of a Muppets Movie DVD. She has never seen the movie and doesn't know what a Muppet is, so while it's not a bad Show it's going to be an absolute doozy of a Tell.

4. A Three Little Pigs book, as if any kid doesn't already know that story backwards.

5. An empty pencil case with a slightly tricky catch that she can't always open.

6. A bendy pencil.

Okay, so that one's not bad.

7. A pair of shoes. Somewhat ornate, but she's worn them to kindy before so...

8. Two bead bracelets which she made at kindy and brought home, but has now chosen to take back to kindy to show everyone.

9. Two bead necklaces which she made at home, out of beads that came from kindy and which every kid will have seen before.

10. One absolutely standard child's hairtie (purple)

11. One absolutely standard child's hairtie (pink)

12. One absolutely standard child's hairtie (green)

13. One everyday clothespeg (purple)

14. One everyday clothespeg (pink)

15. One everyday clothespeg (green)

Okay, that's everything.

So if you live my neighbourhood and your preschooler comes home every week with stories of Show and Tell, except with the world's most normal things, please believe them.

And please accept my sincere apology.

The.
End.