i made a tree

Today I created a tree.
Tall and beautiful and bushy like a Christmas tree. Made out of multiple long sections of green butcher paper, each carefully folded and cut like a stately pine; when I first conceived the tree in my head, it fit around the pole in the room and went up easily. I was proud of my mental tree and couldn't wait to be finished with the real one.
However after cutting and shaping 10 sections of paper and stapling them strategically together to get "just the right affect", I realized that the staples were a horrible idea, the tree wasn't going to make it around the pole if it were to still resemble anything like it's brethren in nature and that it was going to be a total wash if I didn't think of some way to make it work.
Streams of curses swam in my head, I invented new ones where none fit and was biting my lips together to keep the vocal disillusionments from escaping.. I was NOT about to give up.. not on all this paper, Damn it! I was going to make this dead, mashed up tree look just like what it used to be- if it took me all night!! I was determined to let the tree in my mind be manifest in the classroom.
Hot and frustrated, I stood on the step ladder, arms up over my head holding the green- stapley- mess to the pole, muscles burning and brain reeling... I look down at 2 of my favorite little guys- 'L' and 'T'. Both sightly missing some crucial synapses-But they're sweet, helpful and always around when something goes down. I look down at my helpers holding extra tape in their outstretched hands and smile.
"It appears it's not going to work." I said to them.
'L' looked pointedly to 'T' and said to him,"I told you so." He didn't whisper or even try to lower his voice, just as loud as if he were talking to anyone. I started laughing from upon the ladder, I let go of the crappy paper tree and let it fall to the ground. I started to carefully work my way down- afraid I'd fall and smash one of them.
"Oh Miss Keli!" said 'L', "you weren't supposed to hear that." I laughed my way down the ladder and sat down.
I love these kids for just that reason. They can read you like a fast food menu. You're all pictures and easy words to them- they can "sound you out" faster than you think and before you know it they're deciding whether to pass or eat you alive. From way up there on the ladder, in my green monster frustration, my little friend's brutal honesty reminded me that there was nothing up there on the ladder, with my arms burning over my head that wasn't down there on the floor in a chair with a staple remover.
Eventually the tree was figured out and put up. It doesn't look nearly as good as the one in my head, but how many things really do work out that way..?

Lesson #001- The trees in your imagination are usually better than the ones you create in reality, but Try to keep them both anyway.