April 1, 2015

Zoo Day... for days and days

I signed up to chaperon both Sam and Kate's zoo days in school.  Which meant on Monday I went to the zoo with Sam and his class, on Wednesday I went to the zoo with Kate's class, and because they felt left out, on Tuesday I took Marianne and Bethany to the zoo.

Sam's day we only had two girls with us in our group. And that was because they picked to be with Sam.  We sat together on the bus holding hands and playing games on my phone.  And I felt like the luckiest mom in the world, and he was super proud of me.  I was the coolest mom in the class because I bought my groups train tickets and candy.  On the bus ride home I noticed all the kids wanting to talk to Sam, and all of them trying to make him laugh and all the kid wanting his attention.  And I realized it was because he lets them be awesome.  He laughs at all their jokes, tells them their stories are great, their hat is great, their drawing is great.... He seems to be everyone's favorite and I'm betting that is why.

Kate's day was a bit more crazy.  We had five kids in our group and it was freezing cold.  And we had four hours to entertain kids at the zoo.  And older kids don't listen as well.  I tried to win them over with carousel rides and candy as well.  Kate seemed proud to to have her mom the mom who came on the bus.  We also cuddled and played phone games on the way home.  Instead of going back to school at the end of the trip, I snuck her home early and we play outside before we were even suppose to be home from school.  As part of her zoo trip she was suppose to do an animal report.  She brought it home and had it for a week and finished the writing part perfectly and all on her own doing her own research in an animal encyclopedia we have.  There was also a few pictures to draw and we were up til 10pm the night before trying to make them perfect.  What I mean is- Kate was redrawing and erasing and redrawing and erasing to no end because she could draw some rare bird she picked to do the report on perfectly. And I mean perfectly.  She was trying to copy the picture in the encyclopedia perfectly.  And it wasn't working. Finally I threatened her to either draw something and keep it or I was going to throw the whole thing away because it wasn't that important.
We finally drew something, and when we asked her after school the next day how it went she only had great things to say about the oral part of the report and didn't even seem to remember the trauma of the art work the night before.

Marianne and Bethany's day was a dream.  Kind of like the days I always imagined I would have with Marianne and Beth with the older kids in school.  We leisurely strolled through the zoo, stopping for rides on the carousel and talking to monkeys.  Beth hadn't been to the zoo in a long time.  The elephants danced for us- literally.  Marianne yelled at peacocks "show us your tail feathers"  because they were down.  We ate pita pizza and giant pink cotton candies.  But then Beth got tired (because she refuses to be pushed in a stroller and had walked the entire time) and then the train was broken again!  Poor Marianne has tried to ride that train five times now and never gets to and walks away only remembering that from the zoo.

Taking my kids to the zoo for three days in a row was exhausting.  But not boring.  Each day at the zoo was interesting because I was only there to watch my kids experience something.  Plus every day we saw an adorable baby orangoutang.