Kindergarten Field Trip Adventure

I titled this post, "Adventure", because what was supposed to be an average, boring, run of the mill field trip with a bunch of kindergarteners turned out to be much more. It all started innocent enough, I arrived at the school, signed in at the office, and proceeded to my daughter's classroom. The class was actually standing out in the hall, so she screamed "Mommy" long before I saw her. I knew it was her, all moms know their kids voices, cries, and shrills.

The bus ride to the petting zoo was noisy. It didn't really bother me because I was probably just as excited as the kids were to be going on this field trip. I needed this serenity, the break from work, the bonding time with my daughter. My only responsibility on this trip was to keep up with three little six year olds, "Megan" (my daughter), her friend "Katie", and her other friend "Felecity". A piece of cake! I had my schedule which was simple enough, one hour to explore, meet at Nature Center at eleven, lunch 30 minutes later, followed by another hour of exploring. Boy, oh boy, four hours of fun, fun, fun lay ahead of us!

Because I had never been to this petting zoo, my plan was to stick close to some of the other chaperrones from the classroom and follow them around. I'm a genius! We saw some animals, did some walking, and after climbing a very steep hill were at the goat area. All of the kids were petting the goats. They had a machine full of seeds next to the goats for you to purchase and feed the goats. Of course, after seeing their other classmates feeding the goats I had to dig in my purse for two quarters. The line was long, tempers were longer, but the girls were finally able to feed the goats. Once done, I turned around from the gate to seek out one of the other five chaperrones from Megan's class. Oh no, none of them were to be found! There were soooo many kids, and teachers, and parents from other schools that I was getting sick from looking through the crowds. Slightly panicked, I began to walk back down the hill in search of a parent...Any parent from the same school now. Nothing.

We came across a fork in the trail. I couldn't decide which way to go. Katie said to go left, that that was the way to go. I looked down that trail and didn't see any people on it. But on the right trail I could make out some people...so I chose right. Needless to say I chose wrong. Katie was right, but I didn't realize it until an hour later..after we passed the bears, the big fish, the railroad track, etc. By the way, as we were approaching the railroad track Megan said very loudly, "We didn't pass any railroad tracks before. Mommy, this is the wrong way!" By this time I knew we were going in the wrong direction, but refused to eat crow. I figured that we would keep walking and hopefully it would be in a circle and we would end up at the Nature Center. Meanwhile Felecity and Katie were whining "I'm Hot", "I'm Hungry", "I'm Tired"....while Megan lagged behind constantly. I found myself saying every ten seconds, "Morgan walk faster", or "I know you're tired, we're almost there", or "It's not time to eat yet." I stopped several people along the way and asked for directions, but noone knew how to get there. Apparently most people come there to just walk around but never really visited the Nature Center.

At 11:15 I decided to concede and admit we were going in the wrong direction. We had already missed the Nature Center drop off tour, and I was hot, tired, and hungry too. We turned around and backtracked. After 250 complaints from the three girls, we finally came back to the fork in the trail...this time I listened to Katie. Within 10 minutes we were walking through the doors of the Nature Center. Duh!! I guess that's what I get for thinking I was smarter than a six year old!