A Field Trip...Literally a trip to a field

The older children are testing this week and the school has decided, from past experience, to try to get the younger children out of the school completely. Why? Well, because they are noisy. Noisy on the level of a Justin Beiber concert. I don't know this from experience but I can imagine a Justin Beiber concert would be full of screaming, obsessed little girls who think if they scream REALLY REALLY loud he will see them and fall instantly in love. Then they will get married and have babies and live happily ever after. Oh and they might become prince and princess of a far away land that is full of unicorns. Yeah, that kind of loud.

Normally, I do not acquaint myself with other people's children. This does not include close friends and their offspring because they are more like family and are automatically loved. I just don't have the personality which is really funny because literally 80% of my friends are school teachers. Heck, even my mother was a school teacher. I don't see this as a fault, though. It takes a @#$% to deal with some of the clients I have. Not everyone has the patience of a nun like my son's teacher, Ms. Glover does. Or, for that matter, most teachers I know.

I have enormous respect for the profession, though, and I like to volunteer when I can because she has so much on her plate all the time. So when she came up to me on Monday and asked ME (whom she knows is not the most happy-go-lucky person) if I could help her, I knew she was desperate so I said yes. What's the point in doing what I do if I can't rearrange my schedule to help someone? So I said yes. If I had known what the temperature would be today I would have paused a moment....but I think I would have still said yes.

The trip was walking trip to Bryant Park which is less than a mile away from the school. The idea was to walk there around 10 am, spend all day there and then walk back before school ended. It pretty much went exactly like that. Except for the heat. The heat is AWFUL. The heat makes Jessica start talking in the third person. The heat makes Jessica hulk-smash angry. I have always hated the heat but when I was pregnant with George, in the eighth month of my pregnancy the AC went out in both the car and the apartment. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, like a hot and miserable pregnant woman. It seriously should be considered as grounds for insanity in a murder trial.

The heat doesn't bother the children in any way. Not at all.

The morning started out with an unexpected social lesson. As we were walking to the park, several children spotted a homeless man sleeping in an underpass and started to point.

Me: "Why are you pointing at him? It's not polite to point at someone."
Them: "Because he is homeless. Why is he homeless?"



Me: "I don't know why he is homeless but it's not polite to point at someone. You need to worry about yourself and how you are behaving and not worry about what other people are doing."

This was in the first 30 minutes of the field trip. Great Jessica, way to show off the bitchy side right away. Too bad, it was effing hot. Apparently that was the right thing to do, though, because they listened to every single word I said from that moment on. They wanted to hold my hand, they wanted me to hug them, they wanted to sit on my lap. George was so happy to have the coolest mom ever that he kept bragging about me. It made me strangely happy. It even broke through my I-don't-like-to-touch-other-people thing. 5 kids all trying to hug you and hold your hand all day long does that, I guess.

I got to watch as my son played and had a good time. I saw him in his own element and he was beautiful. He was wonderfully caring and he stood up for himself. He has lots of friends and is loved by almost everyone. At one point he even said, "Don't step on mother nature, it's not nice!" It fills my heart. He is just....the best thing that ever happened to me (short of his father and brother, of course).

The walk back. That was the worst. In the heat of the day when everyone was already tired it was almost too much. They were lagging behind, complaining about how much they hurt. I had had enough. My drill sergeant routine kicked in.

"LET US WALK WITH A SENSE OF PURPOSE."
"THE FASTER WE WALK, THE FASTER WE GET THERE."
"I SEE GAPS IN THE LINE. FILL IN THE GAPS NOW!!!"
"LET'S GO LET'S GO LET'S GO"

We got back to the school and we were all drenched. It was 2:50pm and school doesn't let out until 3:35. I simply walked up to Ms. Glover and said, "if there is nothing else you need me to do, I think I might take my child and go home now." As I was leaving with George she says, "I wanted to thank you Mrs. Starkey. If it weren't for you, we would still be walking back to the school in 92 degree weather."

...and I didn't even say one bad word all day long.