World Book Doh

So this is the third year in a row that my children have had to take decorated potatoes to school for world book day. I struggle to see the connection personally but, apparently nothing celebrates literary endeavour so much as a badly decorated legume.
The idea is that you decorate the spud to look like a character from a children's book. And so we all move forward together, ships against the current etc.

Now my problem with this is that my children are very small with under developed fine motor skills. Asking them to decorate anything to look like anything is a tall order. This inevitably leads to a situation where my wife and I complete the homework projects for our five and seven year olds so that they do not have to shamefacedly carry their own crappy efforts into school. All the other children's parents have completed their children's homework assignments so that, if any actual children attempted the projects, the results of their labours would only look hopelessly bad by comparison.

Now I don't want my children to be bullied for having inferiorly painted vegetable produce and so I do what any good parent must and break out my paint set.
This is where the rot starts to set in.
You see I used to be quite a dab hand at model making and painting (thank you Warhammer fantasy Battle  for my wasted teenage years and possible lead poisoning). So I end up getting much to involved in the Spuddington Bear model that I am working on. To the degree that I will not allow my children to touch or go near it in case they mess up the miniature suitcase and jar of marmalade that I have lovingly crafted from rigid wall insulation and glue.

When the spud does not achieve a worthy place in the competition, I am more annoyed than my children! After a few years of this, I am understandably pissed off and refuse to lend my genius to the projects anymore. This means that my poor wife was brandishing a paintbrush at 6am in an effort to make a packet of baby potatoes resemble the very hungry caterpillar (second prize by the way!).

Schools, please stop this ridiculous charade. Parents are busy people. We do not have time to paint potatoes or manufacture scale models of Buckingham Palace or scratch build a stethoscope from a balloon and some double sided tape. (This is all genuine crap that we have had to do for homework).
Make a rule that parents are not allowed to support in homework and stop setting small children ridiculous projects that they are clearly incapable of completing.
Accept the rubbish that they bring for what it is. Slightly less valuable than when it was destined for the recycling bin. Stop expecting anything vaguely good.

Otherwise I swear that next world book day I will just magic marker a smiley face on a potato and write a sign next to it saying that it is Mary Poppins. Hey maybe I could stick a cocktail umberella in it too...Maybe some sort of carpet bag...hmmm, I could probably make that if I cut the toe off of an old sock and then use something to make the handle...


OH DAMN!!!