field trip!

Holy cow am I tired. When I heard that nearly half of the parents of Small Person's class had volunteered to attend the pumpkin patch field trip, I was a little surprised. Really? Wasn't that a bit too much? Nooo way! I was only assigned to look after my kid and one other and that was plenty for me. Taking into account bus transport time, the trip lasted the entire school day. That's a lot of running around after five-year-olds that have suddenly lost their sense of hearing.

I'm sure my own hearing suffered some damage on the bus ride over. I was thankful I seem to have grown out of my school-bus-induced motion sickness. And, I only had a minor headache to show for twenty minutes of hysterical excitement contained in that steel echo chamber.

The patch itself was great. Competition in this area ensures a lot of awesome patches with plenty of auxiliary activities. Besides actual pumpkin fields, there were tons of flowers, animals, corn and hay bale mazes, and the ubiquitous bouncy house. There were several other schools scheduled to attend the same day, so it was concentrated mayhem for everyone. The few families that were there on their own ran for cover as the buses pulled up.

The only downer of the day was that Small Person was stung by a bee on the ride home. Ouchie! Fortunately, we were nearly back to school by that time, and the first aid kit had one of those nice sting soothers in it. Even better, one of the moms works on an ambulance and made quick work of grabbing the necessaries from the kit. I think she should go on every field trip!

As soon as we made it home we collapsed on the couch for a nice little rest. That's code for "mom sleeps through something on PBS." Alas, we are not nearly done for the day. There is still a pumpkin to carve, and a treat to make for the school Harvest Fair cake walk. I have a feeling it's going to be something from a box with some nice orange sprinkles on top.