Field Trip!

Darcy is off to the capital of the Lone Star State today. The whole 4th grade class is taking quite the extended field trip to Austin, leaving at 6:30 a.m. (indeed, they will be gone before this entry is posted) and not arriving home until probably 9:00 p.m. or so. Whew--that's a long day with a busload of 9- and 10-year-olds.

Darcy has been anticipating this trip for quite some time. Visit the Capitol building? Great. Tour the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum? Fabulous. See a movie at the Star of Destiny theater? Excellent. But what Darcy has been methodically and meticulously plotting for weeks is the bus trip.

Who will she sit with? (Emma)

Who will she sit in front of? (Crystal and Ashlyn)

What will she do for four hours on a bus? (Color, read, play cards, talk, giggle, with emphasis on the last two)

How much money will she need? (Not nearly as much as she'd like me to give her!)

How expensive will the gift shop be? (Let's not even go there.)

This is what we've talked about for weeks. And finally, the big day is here!

When you live in a house with six people and all conversation revolves around one subject, the others can't help but get drawn in. I took preemptive measures to head off one situation last night, but I couldn't believe my ears when another scenario presented itself. To wit:

I know Peyton. Peyton can be unpredictable. But I knew better than I know my own name that today of all days, when Darcy had to be up at dark-thirty and Peyton would still have a good two hours of sleep left, Peyton would nevertheless attempt to get up and start her day along with Darcy. And so I said to Peyton last night, "Do NOT get up at 5 a.m. I repeat, do NOT get up at 5 a.m. Stay in bed." So at 5:15 a.m., as expected, Peyton ran into me coming around the corner. "Oh, hi!" she chirped. "Do you want me to get Darcy up for you?" Never mind that Darcy had been up for ten minutes and was already downstairs getting dressed. She must have been stealthier than normal because Peyton hadn't even heard her leave the room. But I'll bet Peyton slept with one ear open all night just the same. Fortunately, she WAS able to go back to sleep so that she won't be a walking zombie today.

And then there was Tyler. Tyler, who is typically one of those "just five more minutes, Mom" kind of kids (well, until recently when he inexplicably began getting up and getting in the shower simply because his alarm woke him--imagine that!), came in Sawyer's room last night as I was reading the little guy a story. He said, "Mom, I'm thinking I might as well get up early and go with you when you drop Darcy off." Randy said, "Buddy, the school won't be open at 6:00 a.m." And get this: Tyler said, "That's okay, Mom and I can just do stuff together until it's time for school." WHAAAAT? You're going to get up at 5:00 a.m. just to save me the drive home? Um, I don't think so. (Not to mention Peyton still needed a ride.)

In fact, I would have loved nothing better than to come home and crawl back under the covers, but after waiting around at the school for twenty minutes to make sure everyone had everything and to make sure the snacks got into the right hands, it was time to come home and make sure the second shift got up on time. I had a lot of things I had to be sure about this morning, didn't I? Judging from the size of the snack box that was filled to the brim when I dropped MY snacks off, I am sure of one thing: Those kids are going to be well-fed.