On the way to the farm

I had every intention of having a good time at my son's field trip , I really did!

Went on leave from work to go with my son to this field trip. There's always a trip every month and I've been sort of relegating this to my mom since I started my new job. Instead of meeting up with the others in school, I'd planned on going straight to the farm. Joshua and I left at around 8am which was right on schedule and I was just congratulating myself at getting out of the house on time when I checked my phone and found an SMS from the teacher. Could one of his classmates and his nanny hitch a ride with us. Sure, I said, I just had to make a gas stop and buy bottled water and juice at the convenience store. No problem, she says, hardly anyone's there yet, they're running late.

Loooong line at the gas station then major quick trip in and out of the store for the water and juice and we were on our way again. Teacher calls again to say they were all loading and were on their way. Luigi and nanny went with someone else. Ok, cool. It was just Josh and me, happily chatting on the highway when he had to go to the restroom. I had visions of all the parents and their kids impatiently waiting for the farm tour to start, fuming at the dumb mom who was late. Hating myself for even thinking about it, I stopped at the next gas station.

Five minutes later, we were stuck in traffic. After twenty minutes, we finally reached the farm. Hokay, no big deal, other parents are still arriving. I realized I was stressing myself out for no reason at all and decided to relax, chat with the other moms (who were really nice!) and take pictures. Mr. Horsie was the first one we met. He kept immersing his head in the tub of water and splashing everyone. The kids were enchanted.

Then came the cart ride at the back of the cow. You can see they were all smiles, heck, I wanted to ride in the cart. It looked fun. There was a curious cow who kept poking it's nose at us, begging for her picture to be taken. It was at this point (10 minutes before 10am) that I checked my phone. Big mistake. I had two missed calls and one SMS telling me to call the big boss (the boss of my boss). I called and he needed a file which, because of my sheer rotten luck, only I had access to. He needed it for a meeting with the owner at 10 am. I wanted to wade into the duck pond and kill myself. Except there were ducks in it. And some geese. "You don't have your laptop with you, right?" Uh, no. Then silence on the other end. The kids were leaving the horse paddock and walking toward a small building. I was sweating already both from the heat and the tension. Then I remembered my brother was still home. So I told my boss I'd have the file sent to him right away.

I never saw the inside of the building. I think there were rabbits...or chickens. I was on two phones, one calling my mom and the other one with my brother. I saw a turkey and a goose waddle over to the path I was standing on and I got the hell out of there before I started shrieking and giving the farm hands some entertainment. I owe my brother one for sending the file (and going thru all my excel spreadsheets, trying to find the right one to send) but I also missed a large part of the tour. Joshua was too excited about everything he was seeing but I somehow felt I let him down. *sniff*

The rest of the tour went ok. The kids went fishing, Joshua didn't catch anything (I was still on the phone with my brother). I was able to sneak in this picture but this is pretty much it (Joshua's the one standing in the blue cap). We had a picnic in the tree house where we had spaghetti, hotdogs, chocolate chip cookies, brownies and pound cake. Josh drank too much grape juice and threw up in a corner of the tree house. There was egg hunting and some photo ops on the back of a farm truck and a rope web thingie the kids all all wanted to climb.

Joshua wrote his name and got a goose feather which I gleefully told him to give to my younger sister as a surprise. She freaks out at feathers even when they're not attached to an animal. Joshua once chased her around the house with a feather duster. I wonder if she'll be home tonight. Tee-hee!