Some of us don't understand the concept...

So it's been tie dye week at work.
Which is NEVER one week. Of course.

It's okay, I expect it. First, it takes a good amount of time to put the bands on the shirts. And the kids really take it seriously, working hard to get the bands on and decide which design they want.

I go through the list for the kids who have not done tie dyeing before.
"You can do a spiral. Stripes. Hearts. A turtle. A chevron design. Random circles. You can do a heart/turtle on the back and something else on the front. You can just scrunch it up and put rubber bands on at random, too. Your choice."

As usual, one or two or three or six kids don't quite understand the concept.

Ethan listened to the choices, or sort of listened, he really has zero attention span. When I finished reciting the list, he said, "I would like to make the logo for the Chicago Bulls."

"Not on the list."

I ran through the choices again.

"Portland Trailblazers?" he said, hopefully.

"Um, no. Do I need to do the list again, or can you choose one of the ones we talked about?"

"Can I do a big letter E?"

"No. Again, not on the list."

I think that kids think it's like painting. That they're going to just draw on the shirts. They don't understand the point of the rubber bands and the dye and all the work.

Ethan listened to the list again and said, "I guess I'll do a spiral."

Then it was time for his little sister to do her shirt banding. I recited the list of choices for her. She scrunched up her cute little face, thought for a moment and said, "I think I'll have... butterflies!!"

"That was not one of your choices."

"But... you have a butterfly on your shirt!"

"I do. But I had to use a needle and thread and spend about an hour making the design. That's not something we can do here, so you'll need to choose one of the designs I told you about."

So she picked hearts.

I fitted the shirts for the kids, holding them up to their backs and making sure they were going to fit. Wrote the child's name with sharpie in the collar of each shirt. Then we banded shirts. There are a lot to get through, I have about 50 kids enrolled. They don't all attend at the same time, some come only in the morning, some only in afternoons, some on certain days etc. But when you total them all up, it's quite a few. So that took a couple days.

After they're banded, they go in the soak bucket. Then I take each one out and wring out the excess soda ash water. I write each child's name on a gallon sized ziploc bag and put the shirt in.

Then, when it's time to dye them, we use a long card table and I help two kids at a time, one at each end. It really works out well that way, but it's not the fastest thing in the world.

Lyssa holds down the fort indoors, I am just outside the back door with the doors open, and we dye shirts.

The kids who were most excited about it were the Kindergarten boys. I had three of them with me this afternoon, and all three of them were really disappointed when their parent arrived to get them and their shirts weren't done.

So each parent said, "Sure, do your shirt."

One dad grabbed a pair of gloves and helped his son apply the dye. First time I've seen that happen. I thought it was very sweet. A lot of kids took home a bagged shirt today. I'm sure they're going to nag their parents until the shirt gets washed out and they can wear it.

It's really a tough job to do the dyeing with all those kids. It hurts my knee of course... and because of the weird thing my right foot is doing, it's a little more painful than I would like. But when they wear their shirts to school and it creates such a buzz and they're so proud and excited, I am glad I am able to help them do such a fun thing.

So life is busy, and I'm sorry I'm not keeping up here so well. I have good intentions.

How are YOU doing?