I was so thrilled that Jim was able to take the day off this past week so I could chaperone Cole’s zoo trip. I don’t know which one of us was more excited. I am very much anti-school bus BUT all of the buses in Mass have seat belts. Yay!! We all met in the classroom and the kids did their morning meeting and talked about what was going to happen. Everyone was really looking forward to their bumpy bus ride. We had a few minutes before we left so this was also a good opportunity for me and the other room mom to work on the end of the teacher gifts. It’s going to be really cute but more about that later. We got on the bus and had a fun ride out to the Franklin Park zoo. We got there around 9:45 and ate our picnic snack outside the gates. That we were ready to go as soon as they opened. The first thing we did was hit the bathroom (of course). I don’t know if any of you have had the privilege of going to the bathroom with a classroom of preschoolers but it was definitely an experience. That portion of the trip alone took around 15 minutes. Right outside the bathroom was an ATM machine. Some of the kids were pushing the buttons and playing around while waiting on their classmates. The next thing I know, Cole comes up to me and says, “Look Mom, twenty dollars.” Sure enough he had $20 in his hand. He pushed some buttons and it just came out. We probably should have immediately gone to the zoo manager or made a plan to put it into the offering plate at church or something really moral like that but his teacher looked at him and excitedly asked him what he was going to buy and told him how cool that was that he got $20! His eyes immediately lit up and you could see the wheels spinning in his head thinking about what toy would be coming his way. We ended up letting him keep the money, explaining that you usually do not get money for nothing, and getting him a light saber with it. After the lucky kid free money thing, we went to a zoo classroom and the kids learned about some different animals. They touched a giant tree roach (SO GROSS), a blue-tongued skink (really cool), and a very stinky ferret. Then we toured the zoo and saw of the other highlights. Everyone really liked the gorillas, lions, and giraffes. The coolest thing about the lion is that it stood up when we were all watching and roared about ten times. All of the kids roared back and it was very cute. Overall it was a very good zoo trip and very fun for me to be able to go. Jim spent the morning playing with the girls, then he took the big kids to the pool when we got back. When we sat down for dinner at 5:30 that evening. He looked at me and said, “Man, these kids have really worn me out. This was way harder than the weekends. It’s a long day being at home with them all day. There is just never a break!” I just looked at him and smiled. I am thankful for days like those. Thankful that I have such a great husband who is a big kid at heart and loves to play with them and thankful that he understands what it is like to walk in my shoes sometimes and appreciates what it means to be a mommy.
You may notice in these pictures that Cole’s hair is “spiked.” The hairdresser put gel in his hair one day and he has since decided that spiky hair is his new five year old look.
I can’t tell you how hard it was to get the whole class in the picture.
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