Kicking (Tyler's) @$$ and taking names...Attendance Video: Take II

So the no-sleeping thing struck again. And as I lay there, my mind spinning with strategies about how to save the world, I was struck with a great idea. Scratch that. As usual, this idea originated where all GREAT ideas come from. Well...yeah. I have to give you THAT. ALL great ideas come from God but apparently, they are funneled through Tyler which is MADDENING. Because there is nothing Tyler likes better than to drop a good idea, like the ingredients to a 3-layered cake, in front of me and waltz off, whistling. It drives me INSANE. I have enough things in the oven without trying to bake a cake on top of it all. Oops...sorry. That was NOT a subtle reference to pregnancy. The only thing that I'm capable of spawning these days are the seeds of insurrection, sarcasm, and insanity. Triplets!

So anyhoo, upon learning that, on top of creating lessons in our basements and wrestling them onto a reluctant internet, in addition to hosting loud, unruly video conferences with 4th graders...

"Honey, can you PLEASE ask your sister to drive her electric car through the kitchen later?" I yelled.

"Child X, does your little brother, who is currently climbing the unstable shelving unit behind you, realize we can see him in his Hulk Underoos?" I asked.

"Sweetheart...PUT ON A SHIRT!" I begged.

...besides developing an unattractive Pavlovian-tic response to whenever my phone notifications ting (beginning at 6:30 am and often continuing until 10 at night), along with responding to dozens of emails, phone calls, and social media communications, as well as trying to track down 9-year-olds who have apparently disappeared from Planet Earth, we are now being asked to take attendance.

This was a difficult enough task when done the customary way because none of us could EVER remember to take it...let along submit it. Now there was a complicated algorithm involved after you'd completed a computer quest ("Complete" is such a cute word indicating that you demonstrated some sort of proficiency or skill when in fact all you did was accidentally, inadvertently, hit the correct tab and then consequently completely forgot which tab you hit so you would have to embark on a whole new quest the next time) to reach the window where attendance was taken.

"If only Joanne could call our rooms when we forget like the old days," Tyler lamented, graciously leaving flour, eggs, sugar, and vanilla behind with his little suggestion.

And there I lay...at 2 am...when it struck. No. Not a solution to save the world. A solution to help us remember attendance.

I contacted our school secretary at 8 o'clock the following morning. "Are you at school?" I texted. "Duh," she immediately texted back...uncompromisingly professional, as always. "Can I come video you for a little movie?" I asked her. This response was not quite so immediate. "Fine," she agreed, the begrudging tone dripping off each of the four letters that made up her ~f word.

If I've learned nothing else, you must strike while the iron is hot (Sorry...my 4th graders are deep in the middle of an idioms unit) so I jumped in the truck and dashed to the school before she could change her mind.

Suspicious by nature, Joanne was even more dubious as I described my vision for the promo. "It'll be like the Liberty Insurance commercial," I told her, singing the song for good measure (idiom). She was NOT impressed. "We'll run two versions of you screwing up your reminder by being nice and then on the third call, you'll nail it (idiom) by raking Tyler over the coals (idiom)." She was NOT impressed. "But I'm always nice to you with my reminder calls," she protested. Joanne, apparently, had another vision that did NOT correspond with mine. Arguing commenced.

We finally came to a consensus and shot our video. "Is it good?" she asked, "I don't want to have to go through all THAT again." I checked, saw that our footage came in at about forty seconds, thanked Joanne and left. Piece of cake (idiom).

After several video conferences where I begged 4th grade boys to put on shirts and explained that they didn't have to take their Chromebooks with them INTO the bathroom, I finally had a moment to start putting my attendance promo together. Hmmm. That's weird. What I had thought was forty seconds was FORTY MINUTES! I had filmed everything EXCEPT the forty seconds of Joanne acting!

I called Joanne and humbly explained my predicament. After she was done laughing hysterically, she graciously invited me back for a second shoot attempt (If by "gracious," one means her saying "You have fifteen minutes before I leave for the day. Good luck."). "Are moments like this how blogs are born?" she asked as I walked in, red-faced and apologetic. Joanne delivered an Academy-Award-Winning performance proving that my inadvertent dress-rehearsal was a blessing-in-disguise (idiom). "Please, Mosiman," Joanne said, scoffing at my theory, "I was brilliant in BOTH takes. Don't be such an idiot!"

See how this goes? Tyler comes up with the idea and I'M the idiot!!! Talk about your pie in the face! I mean, that really takes the cake!