At the beginning of the school year, I took great pains to explain to the Kindergarten teacher regarding my status as a single mother by choice IE no father in the picture at all, and the fact that all of our relatives live in America. I asked her to keep these immutable facts in mind when planning family-oriented events.
At Raphaela's birthday party in Gan, along with three other children, the teacher introduced an activity of just mothers and then, just fathers. The only thing that saved us and every other person in the room from extreme awkwardness was the presence of my brother, who stood in as a father-figure for that particular exercise.
Mildly annoying to me, and I was glad that later in the year, her class largely ignored the celebration of Israeli "Family Day," thus avoiding the need to explain myself, again.
Today I received an invitation for the big party of the year, The Grandparents Party. The invitation stated that the honored guests (the grandparents) would arrive at 11:30 am, and that we, parents of the children of the class, were to surprise the grandparents with a large bouquet of flowers a half hour later.
More than mildly annoying, and I wrote to the teacher, asking what she planned to do for all the kids, not just my daughter, who for reasons geographical or otherwise (very elderly, illness etc) could not attend. She replied that in cases like that, parents could attend, or we could send emissaries in our name, such as random grown-up friends of the family.
"Wonderful," I wrote back, and continued, "So if I am both parent and grandparent, when should I come? Should a bring a bouquet of flowers, which I will then present to myself?"
No response yet from Raphaela's teacher.
Verging on actually annoyed and angry at this point, and wondering if I should keep Raphaela home from school that day and make it a Mommy and me beach day.
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