Field Trip

The field trip last week was a school bus safety lesson followed by a bus ride to a nearby park. It also happenned to be Molly's birthday, so at the park we had birthday snacks. My friend, who is a bus driver by day and an extremely talented quilter by night, was in charge of the bus safety lesson and transportation, which was kind of fun. He looked a little tired of his lesson because he said this was about the 15th kindergarten class he'd met with. Yikes!

The great thing about kindergarteners is they aren't afraid to answer questions. He'd ask a question to the class and EVERY kid would raise their hand. They'd all expect a turn to answer and they pretty much could say anything. After about five guesses, they just start repeating each other, and this really could go on for hours. Apparently they all want their voice to be heard, even if Susie already said it, and Susie was told it was the wrong answer, and Peter tried the same guess after Susie, and was also told it was incorrect, and Nathan guessed it, too...you see what I mean. Comical, but mentally wearing for a person like me with very little patience.

After the lesson we were loaded onto the bus for a "fun" ride around town. Another thing I learned that day was that anyone who has graduated from high school should be offered Dramamine immediately upon entering the bus. Molly wanted me to sit with her...in the very back seat. I had to keep my eyes constantly forward to avoid looking for a paper sack. Some chaperone I was. Who cared if the girls in front of us were peering through the seat cracks and not facing forward? Or that the boys next to us were playing rock, paper, scissors, and then violently taking the results out on each other? I certainly could not care, or I would have been initiating an emergency evacuation due to illness.

Luckily, we did make it to the park without Molly getting embarassed. The kids managed to practice evacuating without injuring themselves. We also managed to pass out snacks without incident...even though every other kid asked for two, and I had to make sure one little girl didn't touch the cookies due to a wheat allergy. We did bring her an alternate snack, but I'm not sure what a cocoa bar tastes like without gluten, dairy, shellfish, etc. After snack, it was off to the playground to let their inner "wild thing" run free. Kids were everywhere! Molly's teacher and I worked on our zone defense to keep everyone at the playground and to run down small children who chased after the wild geese. Luckily, we all made it back to the bus safely with all children accounted for...even Molly...hand-in-hand with her friend, "Guy".