Please step back in the wayback machine for a GBD-FRT conversation from last Friday.
GBD: You know about the field trip…right?
FRT: What field trip? (Now, only one child is in actual school, so I can narrow it down. But that’s not the point here).
GBD: 1doh’s field trip.
FRT: Don’t know anything about it. When and where is it?
GBD: It’s 2 April 2008 (She actually said “next Wednesday,” but I didn’t think you all should have to relive a discussion about using next instead of this when referring to the upcoming Wednesday).
FRT: Nope. Never heard about it.
GBD: (Getting slightly exasperated). 1doh’s class is going on a field trip. To a dairy. Ms. Scott wanted to know if you might want to go.
FRT: A dairy field trip? Fuck yeah!! That sounds fun. Wait. She’s not expecting me to DO anything…is she? I mean, am I a chaperone or just an adult on this thing?
GBD: (Shaking her head) There are other parents going and although you’re not an official chapperone, I’m sure she’d appreciate a little help with the kids.
FRT: Sure. No problem. I just have to get coverage at work.
But in my mind I’m thinking “Hell yeah. A one hour bus ride each way complete with a book and my iPod, a few hours at the dairy with my daughter, load of pictures of my kid and maybe some others, what’s not to love?”
FRT: What dairy are we going to?
GBD: Cagles dairy.
FRT: Wait. I don’t know if I’m comfortable talking about Keagels with my six year old. I’m already gonna have to explain milking the cows, flying poo, the huge nipples (fine…teats), etc.
GBD: (snickering now but trying to hold it together) Just stop. Please.
So there it is peeps. Tomorrow I get on one of those Bluebird school buses with 18 kids and some adults to ride WAY across town to a dairy. There I’ll get to laugh with all the kids and scream “EWWWWWW!” when any of the cows pee or poop in the projectile fashion in which they normally perform those acts.
I will also (hopefully) get to pet some baby cows (real farmers call them calves) and spend some farm time with my daughter like my dad and grandfathers and uncles did with me.
I’m sure that, for the most part, the entire day will be a big buzzing sound for the kids in general and my daughter in particular, but I hope there are moments where we can connect on a level that she surely won’t understand. I spent my summers in my youth on the farms of my grandfathers and my uncles and the memories of that stuff mean a lot to me, and I am hoping against hope that she’ll find some connection to the animals and plants and the sights and smells of the farm.
If not, I plan to take plenty of pictures and movies and I hope to get several of the kids standing ankle deep in what they had no idea was a huge pile of cowshit.
Last week GBD asked me if I knew about the field trip.
What say you?