In my last post I talked about having to teach my child, so she doesn’t forget and she has some kind of education during quarantine, and how it’s reminding me how much I loved being in a classroom, how much I wanted to be a teacher, and how much I miss it.

The saga continues, as I have added to my “teachery collection” with a LAMINATOR. Same as with my recently acquired label maker, I’d always wanted a reason to get one, since it costs money and there’s no reason to have something you won’t use.

My reason for getting the laminator was a game. “Sight word bingo” downloaded and printed off of Educator.com (I paid for a monthly membership lol). My kid LOVES the game, even if she doesn’t understand that not only so I cheat for and help her win, but there are rules to which she must abide.

She’s notorious for cheating.

Even though, when she designs houses in The Sims 4 and they’re too expensive for the families she also designs, I say I need to cheat to move them in, she says, “No! Moms don’t cheat!” Well, honey, they do at Sims. Not always.

Anyway, after I actually won a game of Bingo, and she got mad because “BUT I DO HAVE FIVE SEEEEE”. When it’s not in a row but clumped together. She’s five, I understand to a point but girls gotta learn rules.

Anyway, I digress. I figure, since we play the game at least three times (unless she gets mad because she didn’t win) a day, the printer paper game will wear out eventually. So I posted on Facebook “I need a laminator. How much is a laminator.” I didn’t expect a response (a coworker searched for it and posted a screenshot) nor did I expect my spouse to ask me if I wanted to pick one up.

So yes. He picked one up for me. My stationary obsessed heart grew three sizes that day.

Honestly when I started this it wasn’t about a laminator. It was going to be about how, more than 12 years ago, just before I graduated from college, I went to a required meeting, and received a math kit. It contained numerous tools that could be helpful to a teacher of math in any public school grade. I used it for the first time today. The blocks. Cube blocks that stuck together I used it to try and help my child visualize math and numbers. She still counted but I know she can recognize a few numbers just by looking.

She’s been building random objects with them for the last two hours, including a carrot (green and orange) and two blasters with which we can shoot aliens.

So how’s your quarantine?

Thanks for readinf

-c