My First Field Trip

Zane's class had their first field trip of the year last week.  I decided that I would be a chaperone. It was the first field trip that Zane had ever been on, and I wanted to be there.  I went in to my boss' office and told her that I was taking a half day and why, and after she finished laughing at the idea of me and 24 Pre-Kinder children, she gave her blessing. 

I arrived in the middle of a rousing story about a silly person at a farm, and waited while the children were taken in groups for the requisite bathroom break.  The teacher sang songs with the kids while the others were washing their hands. The singing was good for keeping fidgety kids in their seats, I thought, and I was excited because they sang a song about an alligator and some monkeys that was pretty suspenseful. I was shocked at the ending, but I won't spoil it.   Then all the kids lined up, an actual line, and followed the teacher out to the bus. 

I was amazed to find that our bus driver was a silver-haired fellow who bore a strong resemblance to both Santa Claus...and Waylon Jennings.  I was also amazed to find that the school bus we were riding in was probably in service when I was in school, back before electricity.  At least, this bus had the original shocks.  But it mattered not to our intrepid Pre-K children--they loved all that bouncing around.  I, on the other hand, would have preferred to keep my spine less compressed.  But we were on our way to the Pumpkin Patch.

For those who have never been to Texas, I don't believe that there are actual pumpkin patches here in this area, especially not with the drought conditions.  I could be wrong, but I am pretty sure that we bus all our pumpkins in from other states where the conditions are conducive to such plant life.  So the "Pumpkin Patch" that we were visiting was actually at the United Methodist Church in Windcrest. Because everybody knows that the Methodists have the best pumpkins.

Ahhh...fresh off the vine truck!

After a bit of story time, the children got to wander.  Zane didn't wander too far, and the "patch" was in an enclosed space with plenty of adult supervision. And by adult supervision, I mean there were senior citizens all over the place. It's a known fact that Grannies and Grandpas are eagle-eyed when it comes to children, so I relaxed a bit. These fine ladies and gentlemen had set up little 'centers' for the kids, with gardening, face painting, coloring, and vandalism.  By vandalism, I mean that they had a center where you could "decorate" a pumpkin by coloring on it with washable markers.  Guess whose kid had the most fun with that? He wrote his name ALLLLL over that pumpkin!  If that pumpkin had been a country, it would have changed it's name to Zaneia, is all I'm sayin'.

Then all the children got to pick out a pumpkin to take home with them.  Zane went to the biggest pumpkin in the joint, and tried very hard to lift that massive orange fruit(is pumpkin a fruit? I don't think it is a veggie)  He was disappointed when I said that he couldn't have that one, but I pointed out that it wouldn't be fair to the other children for him to get the biggest one, and he seemed okay with that.  We wandered over to where we were supposed to be, and he picked out a smaller one that he could carry.  Then we were back on the bus and back to the school with our pumpkins. I left the school satisfied that I had done a pretty good chaperoning job, without once requiring a teacher to intervene. I was pretty proud of myself--until I looked in my child's backpack.  Zane got a packet of homework to do--Science-y stuff like weighing the pumpkin and measuring it.

I am going to leave that part to his father.