Friday, October 14, 2011

Pumpkins and Corn

On Wednesday, I took half a vacation day (the half?  10-2...love my boss for letting me do things like that) and chaperoned Chuckles's field trip to the pumpkin patch.  My favorite part was probably the pumpkin trebuchet (where the pumpkins landed with a SPLASH into a nearby pond).  The kids?  Their favorite part was a giant pit of dried corn into which they could fall and jump and dig (but not throw).

It was primarily uneventful though there were a few rough patches.  Each child was supposed to bring a lunch.  One child did not bring a lunch.  The child is also severely allergic to peanuts (and the Epi-Pen is not allowed out of the nurse's office and did not go on the field trip with us).  Most kids brought PB&J for the field trip, and that's what the cafeteria was going to send for the kid's lunch.  If I had a severely allergic kid, I really think I would make every effort to be a chaperone on that trip because I could bring an Epi-Pen from home.  At the very least, I would pack the child's lunch every day including field trip day.  It scared me a lot, and I am very glad that child was not assigned to my group (heck, I ate PB&J that day...there was no real handwashing facility, so I brought hand sanitizer with me).  In the end, everything worked out OK.  I think the child had a cheese sandwich, a apple, a water, and some pretzels for lunch and didn't end up having any reactions.  Not bad, really.

Another child fainted in the classroom right before we were going to head out for the buses.  Better at school than on the trip.  The child went to the nurse's office to rest while waiting for a parent, and we brought a pumpkin back for him/her.

Lastly, I got a really good group of kids (boys...since the groups were all boys or all girls which meant that the family of triplets did not all go with their dad).  I was so lucky to get a good group (and I thanked them all at the end of the trip for being such good partners and buddies for me).

There was a group with two best friend boys who punched each other the entire time on the bus (in a good-natured friendly way, but it would have freaked me out).  There were two boys who did not listen - at all.  They were told 572 times to sit down and face forward on the bus, they needed to be held back (physically) so as not to dart into traffic in the parking lot, wandered off without paying attention to whether anyone saw them wandering away, etc.  Certainly, there could be special needs going on there, so I don't want to complain about the behavior of the kids, but I think those kids should have been paired up with the teacher, the aide, or the student teacher since a parent with a group of kids is not really capable of providing the one-on-one supervision necessary in a public, group setting like that.  One mom who got such a group was exhausted when she got back on the bus, said she focused all her attention on the one kid, and was just really glad all the other kids followed her around as she chased after him.  I hope that's not how every day goes in the classroom where most of the attention is focused on a few children (who really do need the extra attention) and the rest are left languishing because they'll take care of themselves.

All-in-all, the pumpkin patch was an awesome experience, and Chuckles is so glad I went (and so am I).  Now I know most of the names and faces of the kids in his class (and many of their parents). 

++ We now return to our regularly-scheduled pregnancy blogging. ++

On Wednesday (aka field trip day) 3 separate people in three separate incidents asked me when I was due or whether I was expecting another baby.  I though the rule was that unless the woman or her partner told you or you actually see a baby leaving her body, you were never ever to ask.  Apparently, I appear pregnanct enough for people to feel comfortable enough to ask such questions.  17 weeks, ladies and gentlemen.  It's only going to get bigger from here.

Speaking of bigger, I went to get my blood drawn this morning for the Quad-Screen.  They needed my weight for some reason.  I had no idea how much I weighed, so they weighed me. I haven't gained any weight so far, probably.  I don't really know how much I weighed before pregnancy, but it's within a pound or two of where I am  now.  So, that's weird.  I think I gained 30 pounds in my first trimester with Chuckles (of course, I'm already at that weight this time around).

2 comments:

  1. Wow, I'm impressed that you agreed to chaperone a field trip right now! I think I spent as much of my second pregnancy as I could crashed out on the sofa... I was just always exhausted.

    The peanut-allergy kid story shocks me, frankly. I can't imagine putting that much faith in strangers.

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  2. Sounds like fun! I personally love to go on field trips with the kids. You really do get to know some of the kids that your child(ren) spend all day with and some of the other parents. Plus it's fun to go picking pumpkins with the kiddos!

    As a parent of a peanut-allergic child, I'm also shocked that the parents of a peanut-allergic child didn't at MINIMUM pack a lunch! That bag of pretzels could have been manufactured in a facility that has peanuts, as many pretzels are (like the ones at a birthday party my daughter went to last weekend). Seriously shocked.

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