Field Trips

When you are a stay home mom, your kids expect you to volunteer for everything.  (Until the point that they are embarrassed by you.) I know this time is fleeting so I try to step up for all the things that don't make my head explode.  But, during the last two weeks of December and June, there are a LOT of volunteer expectations and I have to let some slide.   (In December,  I am usually stressing out for Christmas and in June, I'm starting to wig out about being the camp counselor for two months straight.  In late June, I hoard my quiet time as if I could actually pull it out later to stay sane.)

Sometimes, there are lots of parents who want to volunteer for a field trip and it turns into a lottery with names picked out of a hat. (Especially in the children's last year at elementary- parent's know the opportunities to be a part of their school day are fading.) But there is ONE trip that is a hard sell- an all day fishing boat trip.  The weather is iffy, the bus ride is long, you get gross stuff on you AND it eats your whole day.  The first time I had a child going on this trip, I managed to evade and/or hide long enough to not get picked.  (I'm not proud of it.) Last year, I was not so lucky.  I waited and hoped the slots would fill but alas...  my son came home and told me about the trip and said they still needed volunteers.  I was still hoping someone else would step up.  I asked my son, "Well, do you even want your mom around?  Don't I embarrass you?" (Please say yes this time only...please...please.)  He said, "Not really.  I want you to come.  You're really good at explaining things." Huh? I didn't really understand the last bit but he wanted me.  How can you say no to that?

The morning of the trip dawned rainy, freezing and windy. I checked my email every half minute praying for the email canceling the trip.  (And praying for lightning- the only reason they would cancel.) Alas, too soon, I found myself boarding a giant, yellow, noisy soda can.  Wearing jeans, extra layers, a raincoat, carrying an extra slicker and a hearty lunch, I braced myself for the day ahead.  And for the bus ride... well, that's a whole other story.  (Click here to read about it.)

It was a hard trip.  It rained AND it was cold.  I gave my extra slicker to a boy who was just wearing a sweatshirt.  (No, I didn't need an extra slicker but I was going to switch into it to protect my legs.  Instead I stayed in my short raincoat and absorbed as much water as possible with my jeans, sneakers and socks.  (I must've gained 50 lbs.)  Thankfully, I welcomed the early lunch break as a time to get in out of the multiplying and enlarging raindrops.  I found a spot in the cabin and tucked into my pb &j and juice box looking forward to the snacks I had brought myself for dessert.  Then a girl sitting near me announced that she had forgotten her lunch. Crap! Sigh...there went my lunch...  

After lunch (or what would've been lunch) we went back out on deck for fishing time.  While there was a fair number of chaperones (moms and dads) for the trip, their numbers on deck quickly declined as the weather worsened.  Finally, there was just two of us.  One mom  (me) and one dad left to help the boat crew. (Whose head to toe rubber, yellow clothes I jealously eyed.) Just two hearty parents baiting hooks for the handful of diehard kids and wistfully looking over our shoulders into the happily dry and chatting crowd in the cabin. (Possibly we were the two quietest parents and were happy to stay outside rather than figure out who to talk to...)  

So, we stayed outside.  I was sticking hooks through little fish eyes (which I had never done before), shivering and trying not to hold onto the handrail where a seagull had recently pooped.  As I was untangling a line and explaining something to one of the kids, I looked over at my son and he smiled at me.  It looked like he was proud of me.  It was like the sun came out just over me and I remembered him saying, "You're really good at explaining things." 

As parents, we get our validation years after the fact. Looking back our kids give us compliments.  In the here and now, they take everything we do for granted and expect us to serve their every need while we wait for the scraps of praise and acknowledgement that never seem to come.  That day that child was not rolling his eyes at me.  He wasn't embarrassed by me or pushing back in preteen rebellion.  He was proud of me and showed it. (Only to me but still!)  It was as if a heavenly choir was singing my praises! It was one of those high notes that makes you feel like you should just excuse yourself before something goes wrong, "Thanks for coming and try the veal!"

On the bus ride home I sat (antisocially) alone in my 90 degree, comfy-as-concrete bus seat.  I suffered through the chorus of "beers on the wall", fart noises and random screaming.  I could barely bend my legs because my jeans were so waterlogged and my toes felt like swollen, soggy raisins.  The bus leaked more water onto my seat with every turn and I shivered nonstop.  I want to say, "The memory of that smile warmed me" but that's not true.  I was physically miserable but I kept replaying that moment to distract myself.  I was happily miserable...


P.S.  To be brutally honest, parenting is often like being one of the seven dwarfs, just picking at the rock with a little pick ax day after day BUT when you hit a diamond? Zowie!  It fuels you for the work that still lies ahead.  There is a line from the Bible that I often think of as a mother- "She kept all these things, pondering them in her heart." The smile he gave me that day and so many other outwardly inconsequential moments I've shared with my kids are my treasures, my diamonds. I am aware of how fleeting life is, how quickly it's over and how uncertain it is. To be sappy, those moments are my riches. 

P.P.S. I will try really hard to remember this when someone wakes me at 4AM because she couldn't sleep.  I will try to be kind when she comes back just as I am falling back into sleep to ask what she should do. And I will (hopefully) smile lovingly as she comes in a third time to tell me she's hot/cold/thirsty/scared.  Instead of hissing like one possessed, "Gooo baaackk toooo yoouurr bedded!!!"