Open Letter to any teachers of junior primary

Dear Primary Teachers:

The intent of this letter is to offer a bit of friendly advice about sharing time. This is in no way meant to be condescending, demeaning, or even accusatory. This is meant to benefit the sanity of all members of primary: teachers, various auxilliary members, the children themselves and, of course, their parents who run damage control afterward.

My advice is simply this.

Never, under any circumstances, and in no conditions whatsoever is it a good idea to give children primary favors that can:

a) be used to paint on the walls

b) be shoved up small nostrils

c) be smeared and/or ground into the carpet, rendering it permanently a different color.

Little cups of dirt, for instance, may seem a cute idea when one is learning about faith. A seed; possibly all right, as long as it is small enough that it will not block nasal passages if shoved up a small nose.

A seed in a cup of dirt-- maybe for those over eight. MAYBE. But when you're dealing with 4-to-7-year-old boys and girls, you must realize that forty cups of seeded dirt in their hands equals flowers next spring.

Oh yes-- flowers, growing in a half-inch of dirt that has been tracked all over the carpet in the hallway.

On a different note, why, oh why, Heavenly Father, do I have absolutely no vanilla extract or nutmeg, and yet there are three, that's right, THREE jars of paprika rolling randomly amongst my spices?

You can't use paprika to make pumpkin bread or tapioca pudding, Heavenly Father.