Do you think my project has ulterior motives?

Ulterior motives that would get me and my daughter  … but mostly me … in on good terms with her sixth grade teacher.

Can I share a little secret with you?

I’m a teacher’s pet.

Please don’t hate me.  It’ not like I tried to be a teacher’s pet.  Well, at least not at first …

I think it all started out of pity.  Up until high school I was tiny.  Teeny tiny.  Runt of the class tiny.

Oh, and I was blind.  As a bat.  So I wore glasses. Teeny tiny little runt Linda with her big old Coke-bottle-glass-plastic-framed glasses.

So, much like the runt of the litter, there was an underdog vibe enveloping elementary and junior high school me.

As I grew older … and bigger … I’d become accustomed to my teacher’s pet status. And I wasn’t too keen to give it up …

So I added in that straight A thing.  What teacher doesn’t like a straight A student? Especially a straight A student who could do a perfect cartwheel with straight legs and pointed toes?

And when I finally worked up the nerve to speak …

… I was painfully shy in my early years …

… it turned out I had a sense of humor too.

Straight A’s. Straight cartwheel legs. Straight man. Or would it be woman? Okay, more like girl …

I mean what teacher wouldn’t find me irresistible?

So now I’ll share a little secret with you …

… a seriously easy brown-nose-worthy teachers-pet-guaranteed pencil vase.

All you need are dollar store pencils.  A soup can.  And a glue gun.  Oh, and for step #4, I put a bead of glue around the pencils along the bottom of the can …

… just a little A+ tip from a straight A student to give those pencils a bit more staying power.

My daughter loved it and happily presented it to her teacher on the first day of school last Tuesday …

… she (and I) are so in …

My son, on the other hand, remarked “hey, that would come in handy if I had a large circle I needed to erase.”

Yeah, that kind of snark will not win him teacher’s pet status …

... though it did crack up his not-quite-so-straight-laced mom.