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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To want to rush into school and save dd from the embarrassment I have caused?

61 replies

MilaMae · 12/03/2010 10:02

Finally show and tell for dd(5)'s group-going on a journey is the theme.

DD wanted to take in a plastic horse with wings "errrr no" said I and duly fished out a postcard from Ds's collection of a train. I then wrote down in detail the various modes of transport we took to go to the Tate Modern. I also made her find the giant pencil she bought with her pocket money from said museum.

DD is squirming and saying everybody will laugh,I say "nonsense" and pack it all up.

At school drop off can't help noticing Barbie princess carriages etc. DD's little face as I legged it after reassuring her that her things would be just fine is now on my mind.

I'm also having flashbacks to the 70s when my dad sent me into school with a yellow box containing at least 50 slides on pineapple picking and a speech complete with bullet points. I was 5 and the theme was fruit, everybody else just took a piece of fruit in. The worst thing was the teacher not wishing to be bored witless never "showed" said items and I had to contend with d&m asking if everybody had found it interesting-continuously!!!!

I have officially turned into my parents and embarrassed dd to boot,should have listened to her,she knew best.

So should I rush in with said unicornor put it all out of my mind and learn from the experience????

OP posts:
fishie · 12/03/2010 10:05

i'd do emergency unicorn dash.

but i too suffered hideous parentally inflicted embarrassment so am very sensitive to such things.

cluelessnchaos · 12/03/2010 10:06

Oh I feel your pain, I would pin up that postcard in the kitchen so I never forgot.

wonderingwondering · 12/03/2010 10:06

Her presentation will be much more interesting than the fifteenth barbie horse, don't worry about it. Is good to be different sometimes! At 5 the rest of the class are not really old enough to be mean about it, it's not like she's 10 or 11.

Nessarose · 12/03/2010 10:07

do the dash, i've done it before as well

Hassled · 12/03/2010 10:09

No - stick to your guns. A unicorn is not a valid mode of transport. It never has been. Your train postcard makes much more sense. Besides, it will be character forming for her.

PlumBumMum · 12/03/2010 10:09

If I lived close to the school I think I would fly that peagusus in there

PlumBumMum · 12/03/2010 10:11

Hassled love it "A unicorn is not a valid mode of transport."

Pannacotta · 12/03/2010 10:14

I think it sounds great, no need to rush back IMO. DOnt htink it soudns at all embarassing, just more interesting than barbie dolls!
My DS1 (also 5) took in a book today about garden birds for Show and Tell!
He is a bit bookish but I thought it was sweet he wanted to take it.

TulipsInTheRain · 12/03/2010 10:16

don't worry, she'll probably win a prize as the only child with a non disney theme.

for world book day last week most of ours went in as superheros and disney princesses... the only child who was actually based on a book character won the best costume prize by default.... you could't even tell he was supposed to be harry opotter!

I had to do show and tell with my dads rock collection when i was 9, now that was excruciating for all concerned

MarshaBrady · 12/03/2010 10:16

No don't replace it, she will be fine.

We have show and tell every week and anything goes, it is better that way, the children see more etc

Hassled · 12/03/2010 10:20

I still chuckle to myself every time I think of DS2's Show and Tell, and what one little girl had to Tell was that her brother had been tagged for nicking a motorbike. There was this long, long, hideous silence before the teacher moved on .

squeaver · 12/03/2010 10:23

Wow, themed show and tell is a bit full-on isn't it?

We also have it every week and it inevitably ends up being some piece of tat in the hall or the floor of the car.

One of the other mothers in dd's class did say at the beginning of term "oh no Matilda won't be doing ballet on Tuesdays now as she'll have to prepare for show and tell the next day".

That wasn't you, was it MM?

EcoMouse · 12/03/2010 10:26

I've usually done the educational and interesting (in my opinion ) show and tell route with mine and it goes down a treat.

Don't rush in, just wait to see how it goes and change tactics if she's still miffed by the end of it.

Smithagain · 12/03/2010 10:27

Assuming her teacher is worth her salt, she will be delighted to see something that actually resembles the theme for the week and will ask your DD enough questions to make them all jealous that they didn't get to go on a train and and buy a nice, shiny new pencil as well!

And the boys will find the train postcard much more interesting than yet another soppy Barbie carriage.

Maybe let her take the unicorn in to play with some day, though, just so she can show it off!

TulipsInTheRain · 12/03/2010 10:27

Thankfully we don't have Show and Tell in dd's school.... she does News once a week though (so basically just the Tell part )

I try not to ask too much about what she says for News though as the few snippets she's told me lead me to believe the teacher now thinks we live in a zoo and eat sausages and chips every night for dinner

MarshaBrady · 12/03/2010 10:33

We were discouraged from bringing toys each week to avoid Star Wars lego/transformer blow-out from the boys.

We sometimes get a bit stuck to think of something new.

One week ds licked some of that edible tubey packaging stuff and stuck it together as a big sculpture

squeaver · 12/03/2010 10:37

Oh yes at dd's school they said "children can bring anything they like to school but no guns or knives please"....!!

flyingdolphin · 12/03/2010 10:53

Not what you want to hear, but for some reason you have just made me laugh out loud - especially the bit about writing down in detail the modes of transport you took to the Tate modern.

Maybe your dd will just tell the class that this is the boring old picture of a train that my mean old mummy made me bring instead of my lovely winged horse that is so beautiful and pink and sparkly. Or pretend to have lost the card and pen and not do show and tell at all.

I wouldn't worry too much, even though be prepared for your dd to hate you at pick-up time.

Original poster
MilaMae · 12/03/2010 10:54

No Squeaver that wasn't me dd isn't.... how to put it politely 'the ballet type'

What makes it worse they don't do show and tell weekly(think past teachers have been buried alive for looooong periods of time under an avalanche of tat). Once a term each group gets a turn-on a theme.

So this was dd's moment of glory

On reflection I'm thinking I'm going to cause more rumpus now if I charge in with said unicorn-she'd probably be more mortified.

Shite,shite,shite!!!!!

In my defense a little guidance is necessary. Last night she had plans to take in a Littlest Pet Shop chick(complete with sunglasses) in a Sylvanian Families pram-can you see the tenuous journey link there .

OP posts:
diddl · 12/03/2010 11:33

OP,did you ask her what she would actually have said if she took in "Pegasus"?

Was it supposed to be fact or fantasy?
A real journey or one they would like to make?

I think if you just dismissed it out of hand then YABU.

fernie3 · 12/03/2010 11:42

dont worry when I was 10 we had to do a little talk on the dangers of smoking all the other children took in posters they had made my dad (who worked in a lab) sent me in with a pickled slice of smokers and non smokers lung.
I was hugely embarrassed but actually the day turned out great because it was one of the only time in primary school i stood out from the crowd!

smallorange · 12/03/2010 11:44

My mother was a primary schoolteacher and used to get the children to give her their news every Monday. One little boy put his hand up and told the class that:
"my mum said that if I didn't eat my sodding tea I wouldn't get any sodding crisps."

a girl put up her hand and said:

"miss what's sodding?"

"a kind of biscuit," said my mother before moving swiftly on...

Morloth · 12/03/2010 12:23

It's a winged unicorn you know. Didn't Hermes use one at one point?

I think you got overly involved in a 5yo's show and tell.

tortoiseonthehalfshell · 12/03/2010 12:34

"Not a valid form of transport"

I cannot stop giggling.

oldenglishspangles · 12/03/2010 12:37

Isnt the show and tell less about the object but more a confidence / communication building exercise for your child? Take the horse - dd took in toys - She was really animated and had made up little stories about each of the toys. This is such and such, she has lovely wings, she likes to carry things.... etc she started telling me when I asked her what she wanted to tell the class about them. I was so proud of her and a bit at almost giving in to being a bit alpha mummy and nearly insisting she took something proper in. I have a lovely african carving. Milamae on the lps chick, I bet she could tell a lovely little story related to transport.