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This week will be a little different with an account of Wally's first grade field trip instead of an interview. I wrote this soon after we returned from the trip so there's no looking back with nostalgia here. The story is fairly long so it will be posted in three installments. They will follow each other weekly on School Days Mondays.
Wally's First Grade Field Trip
Part One
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| Wally with his teacher before loading the bus. |
Wally came home from school one day
excited about some papers he had for me. It was time for the first
grade field trip to the zoo, and he had a permission slip and
a volunteer form. This was just the opportunity I had been
dreading waiting for—a
chance to ride on a bumpy school bus with 50 first graders, and then
chase them all over the zoo as they showed a life size example of
Brownian motion. However I couldn't ignore Wally's enthusiasm, so I
filled out both forms and waited to learn my fate. There were only
had a limited number spaces for the trip, so the school used a
lottery system to pick the chaperones.
I was given a false sense of relief
when Wally brought home a note saying that I had lost the lottery and
my services wouldn't be needed. My relief turned to dread excitement when two days
later, I got a call from the principal that one of the chaperones had
canceled, and I was the next lucky person picked to go.
Quickly I went to work on finding
childcare for Theodore and an attitude adjustment for myself. Maybe
the trip wouldn't be so bad. The kids had matured a lot since
kindergarten where my attitude about school field trips had been formed.
Maybe the trip would actually be fun. Certainly the general
population seemed to think so. “Wow, that sounds like a lot of
fun!” was the universal response when I mentioned the trip to
anyone. Perhaps they were right. I hoped so.
After a lot of effort on my part, I
arrived at the school Thursday morning of the trip with a positive
attitude along with some Kleenex, extra band aids, a blanket, and a
bottle of aspirin. (As positive as I was trying to be, I still had to
be practical about the situation.) The day was looking promising.
The rain had stopped and all of the kids
had remembered their lunches. After group assignments and a bathroom
trip, we loaded the bus at nine o'clock.
We were off and not a moment too
soon. The kids were ready to explode with excitement and essentially
did once the bus started moving. The sound was deafening as 50 six
year olds started screaming with excitement. As their squeals got
louder and louder, the mom in front of me looked back with an
expression of horror and said, “We're not even out sight of the
school yet!”
The first half of the hour-long ride
was filled with the kids calling out the name of every eating
establishment we passed. “There's McDonalds!” There's
Jack-in-the Box!” There's Ci Ci's!” The second
half of the trip was teeming with questions like, “Why are we going
this way?” and “Are we there yet?” During the bus ride, trying to keep a
positive attitude, I reminded myself that the kids had matured a lot
since last year. I saw very little running up and down the aisles and
no fighting as I had seen on the kindergarten bus.
We arrived at the zoo at ten o'clock.
Tune in next Monday to see what
happened at the zoo.
