Riding the Bus with Kinders

On Friday I took my kindergartners on a field trip to see a barn exhibit. Now before I begin I think that you should think about when you are going on a trip with your children. You're riding in the car. You walk them around where ever it is you are going. Now think about every little inconvenience and uncomfortable situation and multiply it by 200 and you will get a typical kindergarten field trip.

Now lets begin our trip. It was supposed to rain on Friday and parents were panicking about their children melting. I fielded phone calls all week reassuring parents that from what the place had told me we would be in an enclosed place. I thought if this is all that I have to handle this wont be that bad...Why am I ALWAYS wrong in these situations??

Friday arrives and the kids are excited, the parent chaperons are excited, hell I'm even excited. I get my kids in my classroom and get all of our little things taken care of, attendance, name tags, lunches, all of the little things. As I am giving the parents their information I also tell the kids to go to the bathroom. I let one table go at a time. I get to the last table and one little girl says that she doesn't have to go. I tell her that's alright just try. She flat out refuses. I'm not her mom I'm not going to push the issue. We finish up parents have their groups I have mine and we walk out to meet the buses at the scheduled time. And there are no buses. I figure they are running a little late. Try 30 minutes late!At least they showed up. We all get on the buses and just before we take off on our hour long drive it happens. The little girl that didn't have to go potty NOW has to go potty and is dancing. Her peepee dance is contagious and 7 others now have to go as well. I tell the bus driver and run them to the potty. FINALLY we are on our way. About 15 minutes in the "Are we there yets?" begin. Then the "I wanna go home" starts. Thankfully I did not hear "I don't feel good!"

We arrive at the Barn in one piece and with NO accidents. I check us in and tell parents times to meet up for lunch and our departure time and send them on their way with their group. I grab my group and head out. As I'm walking around looking at the cows and chickens and other farm animals I notice that crazy lady that I talked to on the phone is a big liar. There were no coverings and dirt on the floor! If it had rained I would have been SCREWED!!! The kids would of melted. But it wasn't raining at that moment. I was so happy. I took my group around the exhibit and had a good time exploring. It was about lunch time and it starts to rain. Not just rain POUR. I get my group to a covered area and go to talk to the bus driver about us eating on the bus to avoid getting wet. That would of been a good idea if our bus driver didn't go joy riding with another bus driver friend and leave our bus LOCKED with the lunches inside! I was PISSED! Luckily I met the nicest guy. He is probably a bank robber but really nice. He got the bus compartment open that had our lunches in it. Don't ask how. So now I have the lunches and a bunch of hungry kinders in the pouring rain with pretty much no covering. One of my wonderful parents found a covered area while I was commandeering our lunches. AHHH a chance to sit and eat...nope. They all had to go potty. I had one dad go with me and sent all of my boys with him to the bathroom. When he came back he suggested that the next field trip I get more dad's to come. Apparently boys don't just go potty it's social time at the urinal.

While we were eating the rain stopped and we continued with our exploring. Now came the "Can I have that?" "I want that!!" and my favorite "MY mom said I could have it." really when did that happen. UGH!!! Finally it was time to leave. My class is all on the bus counted seated and about to pass out. The class that was with mine lost a group. SO we had to send out a search party and wait 30 minutes for the group to come back. We are NOW on our way...all of us. And we are in traffic and I'm sitting next to a parent that talks more then I want them to at this moment. But we made it back alive, exhausted, hungry, and again all having to go potty. And we were late so we came back to not happy parents but angry ready to beat me to a pulp parents. I was greeted with "Why were you late?" "Do you know I had plans?" "What were you thinking keeping my child this long?" Seriously parents I had no control over the traffic or the wayward group. So the happy parents that waved goodbye in the morning and blew kisses to the bus are going to hang the teacher for making the bus late. Because she wants to keep 28 kindergartners to herself. Oh the joys of my job. In the end this is just a typical aspect of my job. And just for the record I had fun on the field trip...minus the 20 trips to the bathroom.