field trip tales

Today we awoke to pouring rain, just in time for me to chaperone Dylan's school trip to Lisner Auditorium at GW University in DC. We sat on the school bus in bumper to bumper traffic, squealing into DC just in time for the play If You Give a Pig a Pancake to start. Very cute, very clever. The other children's books featured in the play are: Diary of a Worm, Fluffy the Classroom Guinea Pig, Horace and Morris but Mostly Dolores, Lily's Big Day, and one of our favorites around here, How I Became a Pirate.

Then it was back to the bus for bag lunch time, since the ground was too soggy for the planned picnic. Oh well, still lots of fun. We rode back to VA, munching our Sun Chips and listening to a bus load of giggling six year olds.

Some observations of a kindergarten field trip:

• So cute how Dylan's feet, adorned in red Converse sneakers, still dangle in the air since his legs aren't long enough for his feet to touch the floor of the bus yet.
• Remember how the windows of the school bus get all steamed up when its raining out? And the humidity on the bus is a good 120%?
• Nothing like sitting in rush hour traffic, miles from our destination, with a bursting bladder and knowing the bathroom is a good 45 minutes away.
• Little girls on the school bus sit quietly and draw, and practice their sweet little songs for the school concert. Boys, however, turn every bodily appendage into some sort of weaponry and spend the entire trek finding new ways to poke said appendages through the seats in front of them shooting each other.
• Ditto for during the performance. Girls sit and watch. Boys squeak their folding seats, wiggle, turn and twist around, and do not sit still for more than 2 minute stretches.

I have to say, though, I was proud of Dylan. He sat still, paid attention and gave me about a hundred kisses during the bus trip and the play. And sitting next to him on the bus, with his head resting on my shoulder the whole way home, I sort of didn't want the trip to end.