Ticker-tape Belt Buckle?

today was my 5-year old's fall field trip to a state park nature center. from the time he woke up he was revved – about everything! he got to wear his favorite jeans and a sloppy t-shirt to school. Yay! He got to wear his old comfy sneaks. Yay! He got me all to himself for four whole hours. Yay!

as a mom, i really do try to be selfless. but face it, we all think about how this or that will impact our self-centered beings, despite the love we have for our kids. such was the case about this field trip. seriously, what mom can actually say that she would look forward to being with twenty loud, revved, children for three hours...almost half that time being on a school bus? yes, you heard me...a school bus! nevertheless, i put my needs and selfishness aside, and headed to the school to greet the field trip head on. Yay!

kids and parents trickled in at first, and within ten minutes the classroom was like a freakin circus. "go to the bathroom"..."here's your name tag"..."mommmmy!..."kid, since your parent isn't coming, you're paired up with so-and-so's mom"..."sit down so i can take a head count"..."mommy, come look. look. LOOK!"..."did i say go to the bathroom?"..."oh, there's a maze paper at each seat to do if you feel like it". meanwhile, the parents who were staying were milling about, and the non-stayers were dropping off their kids, taking one look at the room, and taking off as quickly as possible, smirking on the way out.

it's at this point i realized there was zero coffee in my veins. not one... little... sip.

amidst the chaos i decided to introduce myself to a few moms. i turned to curly-haired mom to begin. we exchanged names, and as if i'd known her for years, she nodded in the direction of a boy who was kneeling backwards in his chair, barking loud, unintelligible noises into the air and said, "he NEVER stops talking. that kid needs a muzzle." curly mom, you just became my best kindergarten mom friend. (let's throw in here that this was the same kid that my 5-year old just told me didn't want to be his friend anymore. huh, bummer. i know, that seems cold. but remember, ZERO coffee folks!)

curly mom and i chatted for another minute, nurturing our new-found bond, until my son decided to use my body as one of those super hero bopping bags. you know, somehow as moms we can keep right on with our conversation ignoring the fact that something with the weight of oh, say, a small microwave, is thrusting itself at us...over, and over, and over again. then add the screeching "i'm trying to get your attention but have absolutely no manners to do so in a polite and respectful way" sounds coming from the object flailing itself against us. surely, one must be categorically dense to be able to ignore this. alas, we do it. as did i while chatting with curly mom.

i think i gave him my attention just seconds before he dislocated my shoulder. well, that may be a bit of an exaggeration.

while regrouping from all the bopping and flailing, the stayers were directed to escort their kids, and newly adopted non-stayer kids, to bus number 3. i was a stayer who had no non-stayer kids assigned to my care. my first reaction, of course, was Yay! within seconds though my mind, being the complex and often convoluted place that it is, turned this initial "Yay!" into the following scenario..."huh, no non-stayers got assigned to me. huh. huh? doesn't ms. b think i'm responsible? doesn't she think i can watch my kid and another at the same time for only an hour or so? she doesn't like me cuz i'm never in the classroom. i work full-time for goodness sake, i CAN'T get here. okay, okay. chill. look around. reframe. get a grip. ms. b knows i work full-time. she gets it. she does too. she has two kids. maybe she's just giving me the chance to be with MY son. yeah, that's it. that's it. cool, i have no non-stayer kids...Yay!"

maybe this sounds familiar. i think we all do it. sometimes the convoluted turn-around time takes longer. i'm glad that the scenario today was a short one and landed me in a good place. i don't think i could have endured the stuffy, long, ear-piercingly loud bus ride otherwise.

upon arriving at the nature center i discovered that mr. bus driver, who bore a flashing blue ticker-tape belt buckle (no lie!), was also known by the kids as the candy man. yeah, it gave me a creepy feeling too. he held out a plastic bin filled with candy (phew! it was wrapped) and each kid took a piece before exiting the bus. hello? can somebody stop this nonsense? pleeeaaase? how many no-no's were just broken there? old man, offering candy, to young children, without parental permission. and there must be some no-no about flashing blue ticker-tape belt buckles...somewhere.

as if they weren't already bonkers off-the-wall enough from excitement AND being on a bus for nearly 30 minutes, they now consumed a sugary treat in preparation for another, say, 20 minute indoor "interactive" nature lecture. let's face it. they were sitting. still sitting. the entire time. interactive, shminteractive! (at this point i'm seriously wondering who had the bright idea for this field trip...for 5 year olds?)

after the seeing, smelling, hearing, and touching interactive lecture, we were taken outside by ms. nature 1 and ms. nature 2. (sort of like thing one and thing two if you stretch it a little.) our group was led by ms. nature 1. she took us on a guided tour of the preserve to explore our senses. with clip-boards in hand to document their experiences, the kids were now... no longer sitting. Yay!

ms. nature 1 did a nice job of keeping the kids on the trail so they didn't "destroy the habitat". she also was quite adept at instructing the kids on what to draw, and telling parents what to write down next to the drawing. i spent most of my time trying to ignore her by taking pictures of my son making his best effort to enjoy the little freedom he had out there. after a cold, 20 minute stroll through the park, i think the children had more of a lesson about doing what they were told than they did about using their senses to experience nature. all that and they didn't even get to run!

i guess you could say that i was disappointed in the field trip. after all, i did have to push myself towards selflessness to get there in the first place. but i can say, that i wasn't disappointed in my son, or in the time i got to spend with him.

we were back in the car, buckled up and ready to head home for a chicken noodle soup lunch. i asked him, "so, did you have fun?". "no", was his reply.

maybe next time we'll forego the field trip and skip right to the coffee and chicken noodle soup... together.