Help! I'm surrounded by 3rd Graders!

I will begin this post with 2 words that should strike fear in the hearts of every mom alive...field trip. I'll wait until you all catch your breath before I go on.

Have you caught it yet? I'm still catching mine. You see, I've always had that "eek" reaction when I hear those 2 dreaded words even though my heart tells me that it would be so much fun to go! In the end, I always end up getting out of field trips the same way I get out of jury duty. You know the line..."I have a little one at home that needs constant attention and I just won't be able to make it this time." Well, the "excuse" streak officially ended this year when Mikayla came home a few days after the "we need volunteers" slip was handed out for the Aquarium and I guess most moms came up with an equally valid excuse why they couldn't go either. The teacher was desperate (there were 9 kids per group!)...so desperate that she actually chose students to ask whose mothers might cave in and say yes. I ended up being one of those moms that said "yes" and had to quickly go to the local Postal place to get fingerprinted so that they were absolutely assured that I had not committed a felony. Of course, as the girl is fingerprinting me, assuring me that these prints are good for 10 years, she also informs that any felony I commit after I get fingerprinted will not go on my record...I guess this is just for those past 35+ years of accumulated jail time (can you see me rolling my eyes?). Good grief-I feel so much better about the whole process.

On to the day at the Aquarium with my freshly fingerprinted self.

Ya, I could write about the cool jellyfish and the awesome touch pools but that wouldn't really paint a fair picture of my day with "the girls" was really like, would it? You know me...I've gotta throw in some observations and fun stories to make this post a little interesting, right?

The morning started out early..before school even started. All 60 children and their fingerprinted moms got together by class, somehow managing to get their lunches into the right large, plastic hamper, merge onto the yellow school bus, and fit 3 to a seat once on board. (I'll have you know that Mikayla had already figured out the seating arrangement. It was going to be her friend, Mikaela, then me, then my Mikayla...all in 1 seat. I had a moment to reflect on the beautiful fact that she actually thought my wide hips would fit between hers and her friend's on the bus and then had to shatter her dreams with the reality that they probably would only be putting the children on the bus and I'd have to take a boring, uncomfortable car ride and meet her there. My bones were thanking me the whole way, I assure you.)

Well, this boring, uncomfortable car ride was so boring that the 3 of us moms actually missed the transition from one freeway to the other, due to a far more interesting conversation, and ended up almost taking our own mini retreat to the beach before then realizing our mistake and getting to the Aquarium LAST, swearing to tell no one of our slight deviation. I think it was mostly my fault being that I was sitting in the navigators seat. I'll pat myself on the back for that one. Luckily we made it to our destination and joined our kids to get the "rules of the day" as we surveyed the field full of about 6000 other field trippers. Our schedule was this: we had an hour to look around the exhibits,  a special presentation at 11:30, followed by another hour of looking, then lunch.

These were my 4 beauties!

I quickly discovered that following my 4 was going to be a challenge. One of my girls thought she had a built in GPS and that I would just automatically be able to track her wherever she went. Another had brought her camera. More on that later...

Here we are, following all of the other school kids. I don't think the animals knew what they were in for that day. The morning started off with a flurry of activity in front of the arctic foxes who were the first to be attacked with 3rd grade volume even though the large, bold sign that said, "we like it quiet" couldn't have been any clearer.

We quickly moved on to the touch pools...with everyone else. I don't know about you but when I'm somewhere with a lot of people and I'm responsible for more than 2 children, I start doing the head count...over, and over, and over.....and over again to make sure I'm not missing a kid. So, this was me the whole first hour, "1,2,3.....4........1,2....3...4." It was like a nervous tic that just wouldn't go away. Once I was assured that no child would willingly walk out of the aquarium and hail a taxi to go home, I started to relax a little, until we went inside.

You see, one of my girls had brought her camera. She loved taking pictures. She loved taking pictures of everything. Twice. I can safely say that about half of our time was spent waiting for Delina to take pictures. One particular moment is startlingly clear in my memory. I was, once again, practicing my head count while we were walking out of an exhibit and I stopped at 3. A young mother with 2 small children was sitting on the bench right outside the exhibit. 3?? Where was #4? I (kind of) frantically looked around and made the mistake of asking the other girls, "Where did Delina go?" I could literally see the wind blow as this mother's head snapped around to look me in the eyes and, with the tone of "thisisthereasonI'llneversendmykidsonafieldtripwithanothermother" said, "lost one, huh?" I quickly replied, in a calm and collected manner, "(ha ha) no, I didn't lose her.. she's just taking pictures in there...I know exactly where she is..let's go get her, girls!" I actually think that moment will earn me the "field trip mom of the year" award, for sure.

 See, it happened so often that I actually got a picture to record it. She went through 4 batteries, filled up her memory card, and took over 250 pictures. All joking aside, it was so much fun to see her excitement in looking at the animals. She had never been and wanted to capture every moment. I loved watching her face as she touched the sting rays and ran from tank to tank, ooing and aahing at God's incredible creations.

After a while, the other girls decided to get in on the picture action too. After all, if they had to wait for Delina, might as well join in the fun!

After touring for about an hour, we were ushered into the auditorium for a special presentation. All of the kids got a "rap sheet" of all kinds of fish. Given certain tidbits of information, their job, as investigators, was to figure out who the "fishnapper" of the missing fish was. Now, if it were me, I'd throw everyone off a little. I'd pick the little, bright, happy fish whom no one would suspect. Who did the culprit turn out to be? Yep, it was Mr. Black Sea Bass with the shifty eyes, jet black scales...a "bottom dweller." That wasn't obvious at all! Besides that, the presentation was fun and educational (I even learned a few new words) and we went back out with our groups to explore some more.

 The penguins were adorable. They're new to the Aquarium and were so friendly.

Then, at the end of the day, my girls found the water table. Mind you, the purpose of this exhibit is to demonstrate the flow of the water in the area of the aquarium. The rain comes, washes down the mountains into the streams and then out to the ocean. The girls thought it looked boring. They were not interested...but, wait...did I say rain? Yes, I did. How do you make it rain, you ask? Buttons make it rain. Who pushed the buttons to make it rain? Yes, the "bored" girls did. Over and over and over and over again. There was so much precipitation that, in real life, Long Beach Aquarium would have been under water. The girls were soaking wet...and then it was time for lunch.

I could extend this blog to include the antics of lunch that drew in every pigeon from here to San Juan Capistrano but I think this recap has been long enough. I'll leave the rest to your imagination. I will say that I had a wonderful time and would do it again in a heartbeat. I loved being with Mikayla and seeing the friendships she has with all of her classmates. She's very loved and that makes this mommy very happy.