I’ve preached about the benefits of going on field trips with your kids before.
It’s a great way to be a quiet observer, to watch how your child interacts with his/her classmates, if they volunteer to participate in an activity, if they race ahead of the pack or open the door for others. Do they start a food fight at lunch? Do they wash their hands when you’re not around, but you are around because you’re a chaperone but in this scenario, the hypothetical “you” isn’t really watching? Does their claim, “Crystal’s Mom lets her wear hula skirts and coconut bras” hold water?
Yesterday, I joined my daughter’s grade six class on a trip to the Pioneer village. It was freezing from the moment we had to convince the bus driver we actually wanted to go to a Pioneer village until long after we returned.
I’ve mentioned my fear of sharks and bats but I probably haven’t stressed enough my distaste for cold weather and Pioneer villages.
If the Pioneer village actors (are they paid or doing community service?) had tried to lure us into a Pioneer bat cave or a Pioneer shark tank I likely would have died on the spot making it the worst day of my life. Especially because the bat cave would have been made with large pine boards with gaping holes for the bats to easily attack us and the shark tank would have angrier than usual sharks whose blubber had been used to make fashionable hats for the Pioneers to wear while gathering supplies to make the bat caves.
We wandered around outside and I was very aware that my boots, bragging on the tag that they were good through -40 degrees were about to spontaneously combust because it was dangerously close to -40 and my toes were curly, frozen rocks under there.
The Pioneer lady held up different supplies and would ask, “What do you think this is?” and my answers would be wrong every time. I thought a giant rug dust-whacker (not the real name but you get the idea) was a novelty fly swatter and I was certain the metal and wood auger was a novelty cork screw.
There were signs on almost all of the buildings warning us of the hot stoves and to be careful not to get too near the extreme heat.
I was ready to throw my body onto the promise of a flaming log inside a stove except in EVERY scenario, the stoves were either out-of-order or “just not on today.”
To celebrate our pending hypothermia, we watched as the kids participated in an outdoor hoe-down. A sure sign the apocalypse was near.
After school, I took Chloe to her gymnastics lesson.
Some guy had the nerve to walk in and say, “Wow, it’s cold in here.”
Ha! That guy never would have made it as a Pioneer.
