Field Trip

I went to the children's museum with Bella's Kindergarten class.  The kids were quite excited.  I was given the task of keeping track of 5 of these kindergarteners.  Seems like an easy task, right?

We board the bus & all sit near each other.  Get off and walk to the main room for a class presentation.  All is going great.  The meetings over and our group (4 girls and 1 boy) decide to visit the potty first so we don't have to make any stops along the way.  The girls all go and the boy and I are sitting on a bench waiting.  He says, Whats taking so long?  I said, Get used to it.  You'll be doing alot of this in your life.  We talked a little about our favorite Super heroes.  He is more Spiderman while I'm more Batman.

The girls finally come out and we head upstairs to the train.  (we had a little pow-wow before we left school and planned out what we wanted to see)  The minute we walk into the room-5 kids scatter everywhere.  Let me remind you that it's not just our 22 kids at the museum.  There are lots of parents/grandparents with kids.

As I am trying to rope in some kids (the girls) to the train, I am having a small little problem.  I can't find the boy!  Great!  There goes my shot at most responsible parent! (well, not like I had a chance or anything, but, you never know)  I finally find him at the block station, remind him to keep track of me and bring him to the train. 

The whole time I'm counting.  1, 2, 3, 4, 5.  1, 2, 3, 4, 5.  1, 2, 3, 4.  ?  Wait!  Who's missing?  Its the boy again!  I turn around in a panic, look up, down and find him about to crawl through a mirrored tube. (multiple boys, hmm, I just need one and shake my head and come back to reality)  I bring him back to the group.

We then have a little group meeting.  Lets try to stick together.  You have to see me at all times, stay together.  Yea, yea, yea.  Meeting adjourned - they all run in 5 different directions.  Well, that was a big help.

We make our way down to the Bubble/water play area.  Playing with bubbles and some moving onto the water area.  1, 2, 3, 4, 5.   1, 2, 3.  ?  Wait, who's missing?  Ok, she's climbing a ladder behind the waterplay area (I can only see her hand) Oh, and 2 are now climbing the stairs to the top of the water fall.  Ok, Phew.  1, 2, 3, 4, 5.  1, 2, 3, 4, 5.  1, 2, 3, 4. ?  Where's the boy?  Panic.  I look around, ask the teacher and another mom.  I ask the kids.  I walk over to the next exhibit and there he is, having  a good time.  I bring him back and we move on. 

One girl ends up with a rug burn on her arm, so I have to ask for a band aid.

We run through the rest of the exhibits.  I'm getting the hang of this, its not too bad.  Time to line up for the bus and I hear, "I can't find my sweatshirt!" (we were told to leave all coats on the bus, some chose to wear their sweatshirts inside the building)  Its the boy.  I ask another mom to watch my group as the boy and I run back inside to find the missing sweatshirt.  Well, I'm looking and he is running around playing.  The guy I got the band aid from asked if I was a teacher.  I said no, which was probably a relief to him.  (1 kid has a rug burn, losing kids and their stuff doesn't exactly make me good teacher material)

We got the kids safely back to school and I made a mental note to myself for the next field trip:  Aspirin before and margaritas afterwards.