Worship at the altar of my son.

This week my son is the "star student" in his class. Each student gets a week where they get to be, well, the star. I knew that this was his week. What I didn't know was that it would require hours of manpower (or maybe mom-and-dad-power) to pull off.

Imagine my surprise when yesterday I got a little note from his teacher that said, "Please send in a poster of pictures of Ethan." And it wasn't even the subject of the note, it was a little footnote. As in, oh, by the way, please make a big poster of your son with pictures you don't have and send it in for his week, which is already half over, and didn't you know you were supposed to do that, you clueless mom?

And, um, me being me, I couldn't just print some pictures off the computer (because all my pictures are digital) and tape them down. No, not me, I was determined to make him a nice poster.

So I decided to find out more about this 'digital to print' thing I have heard about. You know, where you can upload your digital pictures to a place like WalMart or Target and they magically turn them into actual pictures that you can hold in your hand. And I found out that, hot damn, they can do that. And in an hour. And - here's the part I love - it's easy.

After much deliberation I decided on some pictures. There were no baby pictures, because those are actual prints, and in no way was I going to tape those down and send them to school for a group of Kindergarteners to put their grubby little hands on. No, the pictures I used were from about age 3 onward.

So then off to WalMart the whole family went, where we got ourselves some posterboard. And, well, we got a lot of other things too. Things we didn't really need, with maybe a few we actually needed thrown in for good measure.

Fast forward to me, after putting the kids to bed, hunched over a bunch of posterboard, cardstock, photos, rolls of tape and scissors. Oh, and also, a paper cutter (which I love because it actually cuts in a straight line, versus the wavy thing I call a line when I do it freehanded.)

An hour or so later, after a lot of frustration, and a lot of tape, I finished the poster. And when I held it up, I realized that it was one hell of a poster. As in, hmmm, is it supposed to be this big? Because it was BIG. It was a downright big poster (an homage, if you will) dedicated solely to my son. Then I was scared it was too big. I didn't want it to seem like I wanted them all to worship at the altar of my son.

And me being me, again, I got my husband sufficiently worked up about whether or not we were sending in an appropriate sized poster. He kept asking, "Are you sure it should be a poster?" And I kept saying, "I don't know. She just sent home a little note! Not an explanation! Who would ask this of a parent at the last minute?! Don't they know I need time and preparation?!? Don't they know I need exact measurements and instructions?!?! Don't they know I need time?!?!?!"

Here's where it gets embarrassing: My husband went to work late this morning because he wanted to take the poster in to my son's teacher and make sure that it was what we were supposed to send in. Yeah, we were that worked up over it. While most parents would have just thrown something together and never give it a second thought, we will obsess and fret. And grill our son over his breakfast about what the other kids brought in. Also, for your information, a Kindergartener is absolutely no help when it comes to explaining the exact dimensions of other children's posters.

Oh, and the poster size? It was fine.