Mothers have an uncanny knack for knowing things; many children believe that their mother actually has eyes in the back of her head. It is not so much that they see more than any other adult, it’s just that they HAVE to know/remember more stuff: when the field trip money is due, where junior left his library book, who needs new Sunday shoes, what an isosceles triangle is, how to get food into a toddler, how to spell every word and fix any problem…
Last night at dinner, while Kira was doing the “get food into a toddler” drill, the conversation turned to things I didn’t know as my children were growing up. There was the time my three younger children were watching TV and popping gobstoppers. Seven-year-old Isaac popped one into his mouth and it went right past his tongue into his throat where it stuck. Fortunately, his 14-year-old brother knew the Heimlich maneuver and Isaac is alive today. That prompted Eli’s recounting of the time he was 15 and rehearsing for the musical “Grease” at the high school. He was playing guitar in the pit, but couldn’t decide whether or not to use a pick. Just then the conductor said, “Pick-up to measure 16, let’s go,” and started the music. Eli quickly popped the pick in his mouth, where he kept it between his teeth when he wasn’t using it, but he popped it too quickly and instead of catching it in his teeth, it went down his throat where it stuck. He is playing his guitar while trying to get it back out, but he realizes the only direction it can go is down. “I had a terrible time getting it down, and it hurt like the dickens, but I swallowed it!”
I have decided that mothers, although they know many wonderful things, shouldn’t know everything, at least not until enough time has passed that fainting and panic can be replaced with a bit of laughter. Now I’m wondering if that pick is still stuck in him somewhere, but I don’t think I really want to know.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
field trip
This week I went on a field trip with three kindergarten/preschool classes to the Pumpkin farm. A local farmer has been giving away free pumpkins to school children for nearly 30 years, with roughly 1000 school children visiting his farm each fall day. It is quite an amazing thing and a very exciting event for the children. This field trip, however, was not what any of us expected…
First of all, we expected a sunny day with a crispness in the air, the kind of day that smells and feels like fall, the fall I love so much. It was bitterly cold with a cold wind blowing and rain sprinkling off and on. We expected the pumpkin patch to extend for miles with beautiful pumpkins of all sizes where each child could pick out just the right one to suit his or her desires. It extended for miles, but the pumpkins this year were exceptionally large (due to an unfortunate circumstance involving pigs and natural fertilizer; use your imagination), and last week’s hard freeze made a mess of the crop, many of them were already rotting. Plus, we were on the tail end of the thousand-a-day visitor roster, leaving us pretty slim pickin’s. We hadn’t thought the logistics through, either, for it was impossible to keep our children together in nice little groups, once they hit the pumpkin patch, they were everywhere and we had no way of rounding them up again. I guess we had naively expected they would just be drawn to us at the end of the search. It was somewhat of a miracle that only one child was lost (and thankfully, eventually found).
The teachers wisely decided to get one pumpkin per class, expecting the children would understand the nature of the dilemma we would have if every child picked out a 20-pound pumpkin, but some of the children had their little hearts set on a pumpkin of their very own and also picked out one for themselves. Now MY rule has always been, “You choose a pumpkin you can carry by yourself.” But there were no half-way decent pumpkins under 20 pounds. We brought plastic grocery bags to help the children carry the pumpkins, but plastic grocery bags aren’t strong enough for 20-pound pumpkins we could barely get to fit inside a bag. All the bags were torn to shreds right off the bat. Time for an exercise in problem-solving. How do these little kindergarteners get their huge pumpkins that half mile, up-hill to the bus… I expected the children would realize the futility of their dream and let it shatter there in that muddy field… not!
We rounded up my little group of eight kindergarteners (with three adults) and started off for the bus. The other two adults had the one pumpkin and five children with them. I lingered with the last three children, the ones with a pumpkin each. David decided he could kick his pumpkin up to the bus by pretending it was a soccer ball. He was wearing cowboy boots. I suggested pushing it with the side of his boot. Dylynn rolled hers, and Jordan was more worried about keeping hers warm… It was mighty slow going, and we lost sight of the rest of our group in 30 seconds. I suggested that perhaps we should leave the pumpkins behind as a gesture of good will for some other children (8 more busses arrived while we were there), expecting that they had had enough of the pushing-rolling-kicking. They wouldn’t hear of it. I pushed David’s for a ways, then rolled Dylynn’s a while to give her a break. I picked up Jordan’s and carried it (to keep it warm, of course). At this rate we could get to the bus in an hour. So, I carried one pumpkin 15 yards and left it with its owner while I went back for the next pumpkin and child, then went back for the last pumpkin and child. Then we did another 15 yards the same way and kept on going until we finally made it to the bus. We were exhausted, frozen, dirty, and so glad to get back to school, just in time for lunch. We expected that nap-time would be a welcome treat; only 2 fell asleep.
The ordeal took its toll, however. Three children from our class alone succumbed to “field trip fatigue” and had to go home after lunch. One of them was Dylynn. The sad thing is, after all her work for her pumpkin, she left it at the school and when she went to take it home the next day, it was gone. I guess we should have expected that.
First of all, we expected a sunny day with a crispness in the air, the kind of day that smells and feels like fall, the fall I love so much. It was bitterly cold with a cold wind blowing and rain sprinkling off and on. We expected the pumpkin patch to extend for miles with beautiful pumpkins of all sizes where each child could pick out just the right one to suit his or her desires. It extended for miles, but the pumpkins this year were exceptionally large (due to an unfortunate circumstance involving pigs and natural fertilizer; use your imagination), and last week’s hard freeze made a mess of the crop, many of them were already rotting. Plus, we were on the tail end of the thousand-a-day visitor roster, leaving us pretty slim pickin’s. We hadn’t thought the logistics through, either, for it was impossible to keep our children together in nice little groups, once they hit the pumpkin patch, they were everywhere and we had no way of rounding them up again. I guess we had naively expected they would just be drawn to us at the end of the search. It was somewhat of a miracle that only one child was lost (and thankfully, eventually found).
The teachers wisely decided to get one pumpkin per class, expecting the children would understand the nature of the dilemma we would have if every child picked out a 20-pound pumpkin, but some of the children had their little hearts set on a pumpkin of their very own and also picked out one for themselves. Now MY rule has always been, “You choose a pumpkin you can carry by yourself.” But there were no half-way decent pumpkins under 20 pounds. We brought plastic grocery bags to help the children carry the pumpkins, but plastic grocery bags aren’t strong enough for 20-pound pumpkins we could barely get to fit inside a bag. All the bags were torn to shreds right off the bat. Time for an exercise in problem-solving. How do these little kindergarteners get their huge pumpkins that half mile, up-hill to the bus… I expected the children would realize the futility of their dream and let it shatter there in that muddy field… not!
We rounded up my little group of eight kindergarteners (with three adults) and started off for the bus. The other two adults had the one pumpkin and five children with them. I lingered with the last three children, the ones with a pumpkin each. David decided he could kick his pumpkin up to the bus by pretending it was a soccer ball. He was wearing cowboy boots. I suggested pushing it with the side of his boot. Dylynn rolled hers, and Jordan was more worried about keeping hers warm… It was mighty slow going, and we lost sight of the rest of our group in 30 seconds. I suggested that perhaps we should leave the pumpkins behind as a gesture of good will for some other children (8 more busses arrived while we were there), expecting that they had had enough of the pushing-rolling-kicking. They wouldn’t hear of it. I pushed David’s for a ways, then rolled Dylynn’s a while to give her a break. I picked up Jordan’s and carried it (to keep it warm, of course). At this rate we could get to the bus in an hour. So, I carried one pumpkin 15 yards and left it with its owner while I went back for the next pumpkin and child, then went back for the last pumpkin and child. Then we did another 15 yards the same way and kept on going until we finally made it to the bus. We were exhausted, frozen, dirty, and so glad to get back to school, just in time for lunch. We expected that nap-time would be a welcome treat; only 2 fell asleep.
The ordeal took its toll, however. Three children from our class alone succumbed to “field trip fatigue” and had to go home after lunch. One of them was Dylynn. The sad thing is, after all her work for her pumpkin, she left it at the school and when she went to take it home the next day, it was gone. I guess we should have expected that.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
a better route home
Last night I was reminded of a sweet memory from my childhood in the small college town of Rexburg, Idaho. It was 1962, I was 9 years old. I had spent the day with my best friend, Laurel Zollinger. Their large family had a nice home and I always felt welcome there. They had a lovely playhouse in their back yard but it wasn’t as popular as the fabulous mud hole at one end of the long driveway where I learned to “bake.” We made such wonderful delicacies from that rich Idaho soil and never-ending supply of the finest ingredients: cinnamon sugar (sand), nuts (gravel),dried fruits (leaves)… Our creations were laid out on a seemingly endless length of 2x4 to bake in the sun.
This particular day we baked until after dark, when the “oven” cooled down, and although it was a straight shot for me to walk only two blocks to my home, Laurel asked her dad if he would drive us there. I was a little embarrassed to bother him, but Laurel insisted, and I thought I saw a little twinkle in her eye. Her Dad agreed and we got in his car. He claimed to not know the way, so she happily agreed to give him directions and thus began a nice little wild-goose chase through our neighborhood. “Turn right here, then turn left at the next street, then go strait for two blocks and turn right again…”
A good ten minutes later I was getting nervous that he would have enough of this nonsense and just drop me off at the next stop sign to find my own way home. But he was quite agreeable to play along, even when her directions led us right to the A&W drive-in! “Well, lookie here,” he said, feigning surprise, “I must have gone right when you said left! Well, as long as we’re here, let’s get us a root beer!” And so we did. My nervousness subsided as he happily handed us our mugs. We all enjoyed our treats and then, surprise, he knew right where I lived…
I was terribly impressed with Laurel’s cleverness, but touched more by the father, who was willing to take the time to make a sweet memory for a child. He knew the better route home after all.
This particular day we baked until after dark, when the “oven” cooled down, and although it was a straight shot for me to walk only two blocks to my home, Laurel asked her dad if he would drive us there. I was a little embarrassed to bother him, but Laurel insisted, and I thought I saw a little twinkle in her eye. Her Dad agreed and we got in his car. He claimed to not know the way, so she happily agreed to give him directions and thus began a nice little wild-goose chase through our neighborhood. “Turn right here, then turn left at the next street, then go strait for two blocks and turn right again…”
A good ten minutes later I was getting nervous that he would have enough of this nonsense and just drop me off at the next stop sign to find my own way home. But he was quite agreeable to play along, even when her directions led us right to the A&W drive-in! “Well, lookie here,” he said, feigning surprise, “I must have gone right when you said left! Well, as long as we’re here, let’s get us a root beer!” And so we did. My nervousness subsided as he happily handed us our mugs. We all enjoyed our treats and then, surprise, he knew right where I lived…
I was terribly impressed with Laurel’s cleverness, but touched more by the father, who was willing to take the time to make a sweet memory for a child. He knew the better route home after all.
Monday, October 5, 2009
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