Motherhood- 3rd grade field trip....

The other day my only son came running in the house. He was lit up and excited. They had rescheduled his field trip (the first was rained out) and it was next week. The disappointment from the first failure was tough on him so I shared his happiness. Not long in to talking with him though I discovered the true source of his excitement was not simply because the field trip had been rescheduled but because he had decided that I could accompany him on the new one this next week. In the years I have had school age children, six years if we are counting I have found ways to help in the classroom including teaching art, class room parties, correcting homework. All of which I don't do for the teacher, I do it for my kids. The look on their face or their excitement is worth the sacrifice. I, however, have never attended a field trip (unless you count the twins at preschool). Mostly its because I have always had younger children they don't allow to come along. Sure I could have swapped babysitting but my older kids seemed to accept my inability to go so I continued to volunteer at the school in other capacities.... Until this one.

So I said yes! We were scheduled to head up to a Garden I was familiar with so that didn't seem to difficult. Proving to swap the twins proved to be hard on this particular day but in the end a good friend took them.

So yesterday I was running behind after dropping the twins off and went to change into good walking shoes as I knew I could expect two hours walking around the garden and the weather was again unsettled. This is where things went down hill. My gym shoes were no where to be found and I didn't have to look much to know where they were... they were on my sixth graders feet! So I grabbed my boots (which are high heeled and very uncomfortable and ran out the door. My plan was to run in the school and force the culprit to switch me shoes. This would have worked except when I got to the school the previous written planned had changed from eating at the school to shuffling on the bus immediately and heading to a park. So off we went.

I was worried about walking the garden in my boots but the face above was worth the pain.

 Upon arriving at the garden I was ready to get off the bus :)

So we grabbed a poncho and headed out.  We walked through the beautiful Daffodils, past the paved pathways, and out of the garden and headed into the wet, soggy foothills. 

It was muddy. It was drizzing. It was cold and it was steep hills!

I like to hike and like to be fit but I was completely unprepared for this kind of hiking.  I began to contemplate turning back but my pride was hard to conquer.

So I kept going.  It got more muddy and more uneven and it was difficult.  I rolled my ankles several times.  Try walk in grass in high heeled boots. Then imagine walking uphill, downhill, through mud, rocks, uneven ground all the while worrying if the rain increased there is no way I would make it down at all.

It got a lot muddier.  At this point I decided I had to go back or I was going to fall, get hurt, I just couldn't make it.  We had been hiking about an hour and it was here that discovered it was a loop.  I was half way in.  Jacob had ran back to check on me and when I told him I had to go back he was worried and wanted to help me go back too.  This tugged my heart strings ....  I would do anything for him to have his Mom to do this with him.  So I continued.  We passed other groups.. all covered in mud.  All I could think was all those shoes ruined.  Wouldn't other Mom's be mad?   Some kids had ditched their shoes and were barefoot (it was cold too).

Here we are before heading down the steep slopes.  I'll be honest I almost cried. It hurt that much and was that hard but I made it!

 Those high heeled boots are going in the trash!  As for the sixth grader what is the appropriate punishment?  If I had any idea we were doing a two hour hike through the mud and hills I would have absolutely switched her shoes and made the whole entire bus wait.... and I would have had those to throw away too.  But I would have had a lot less pain.

So my first field trip experience wasn't exactly glowing but Jacob's face was.   We stopped for Sundae's and McDonald's and he expressed gratitude to me for doing it all.  That almost makes it worth it.