I’m just gonna put it out there.
I HATE school field trips.
I was going to write I HATE “expletive” field trips but realized I’m so tired from supervising said “expletive” field trip, I couldn’t think of where to put the comma in order to keep you from reading that sentence as me doing some sort of pervy shit to field trips instead just really really not liking them.
It’s the age old Verb vs. Adjective dilemma.
In no particular order, this is what I hate about field trips:
The bus with no seatbelts, shocks or way to dispel the exhaust fumes
The noise
Sticky hands
Bad weather
Kids who won’t listen
Losing kids – especially those that aren’t mine
Kids who need to trek to the bathroom every 1.2 minutes
The lack of alcohol
And yet every single field trip, there I am filling out the permission form and checking off the YES! I’d LOVE to volunteer box.
Why?
Simply because my they ask me to.
They ask, so I do it.
My kids still occasionally let me hold their hands when we walk to school, I can kiss them on the head in public and give them hugs around their friends. We hang out in the evenings, play in the park and every summer, they choose to not go to summer camp because they still prefer to hang out with me.
So I play with them at the park - not always willingly, don’t send them to camp when I’m completely strung out trying to balance work and having them home, and volunteer for field trips even though I hate it.
Today on the field trip, we were all standing in the rain learning about owls when Son No. 2 suddenly broke from the pack, ran over and hugged me.
I want you to come on every field trip with me mummy he said with his face buried in my jacket, little arms wrapped tightly around my waist.
But I know better. I know there’s going to come a time when my boys stop holding my hand and shy away from my kisses, they’ll be clamouring to go to camp and think it’s way cooler to have some other mom on their field trip.
Chances are Son No. 2 will grow up and never remember this field trip. A mist covered memory in the back of his brain, the owls forgotten along with the hug.
But I won’t.
So I go.
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