Dueling Field Trips

In a moment of Mommy Genius, I signed up to chaperone Elisabeth's field trip and Benjamin's field trip... without realizing they were both scheduled for today. Now, normally, that would not be a HUGE dilemma-- I would just call in the reinforcements. However, this week: one set of grandparents is on vacation; another set of grandparents is in the hospital; my sister is due to have a baby any minute; my brother is adjusting to his first week as a stay-at-home dad; and, any mom I know in this town is pretty much slated to go on one field trip or the other.

In reality, chaperoning neither field trip was mandatory. Benjamin's was his second to an apple orchard, this one for his other preschool class. Libby's teacher had to put a limit on the number of chaperones due to space restrictions. But, my kids are young enough that they still want Mommy to come along on fun outings with their friends, so, why wouldn't I take advantage of that?

My solution: DADDY. Thankfully, Todd is home this week, and, in a rare move, I told him he just needed to take the day off and go. In an even rarer development, he agreed. Since Grandpa got the first orchard visit-- and since that trip was shorter, requiring fewer hours for Auntie to watch Madeline-- I went with Ben.



We had a wonderful time at Fall Harvest Orchard. The weather has been unbelievable. We took a tractor ride around the orchard and surrounding fields and learned all kinds of random facts about agriculture and horticulture and farm animals. Ben crawled in the corn bins and hopped through the hay. The only low spot was when Ben got scratched by a farm cat. He did receive numerous warnings, from me and the cat, but some boys have to learn the hard way.

Oh, Libby's field trip was to see a play. Where are the photos? You'd have to ask that chaperone.