What Not To Do

I'm going to tell you what not to do. I know you shouldn't do it, because I just did it. You don't need to learn this first-hand, my experience should be enough. 

When your kindergartener brings home the class pet for the weekend, and has a "journaling" assignment to chronicle the fun events of the weekend, do NOT get involved. Don't agree to take pictures of all of the fun they're having. Especially if the "pet" is a stuffed animal that can go everywhere with your child. 

Don't encourage her to type her journal entry on the computer. Don't agree to create a document with the text and pictures. Because your iPhoto might be wonky and refuse to save your photos on the computer. And then you might have trouble actually inserting those carefully taken photos into a Word document. So you might need to start all over with a Powerpoint document. And then you might feel the need to crop and edit the photos so that they neatly fit on a few pages. 

Just don't do it. 

It will take up your entire night - that Sunday night that you use to catch up and prepare for the upcoming week. You need that night. Desperately. You don't need the frustration of cropping and rotating. Of copying and pasting. Of trying to reconnect with your inner Powerpoint diva.

You should follow the example of the 7th child in the class who took the "pet" home - the one who wrote her entry in "kindergarten spelling" and drew pictures instead of taking them. The one whose family printed a few photos in black and white printer ink and just pasted them on. Her journal entry was lovely and charming. It was perfect. You should do that, too. It's a wonderful idea.

Trust me.