It was a week of field trips.  I attended with Lainy's class to the AZ Science center.  There were double the number chaperones needed, so Lainy and I ended up having a little day date!  We had a grand time.  We had season passes there last year, so we were right at home.

A few days later I went with Jayce's 6th grade class to the Renaissance Festival.  First, it is my very least favorite time period.  I can't stand their rude mannerisms (which all the workers adhered to very well) the wardrobes, the women's roles, the fact that the men would ride horses next to each other while all geared up in metal suits and try and ram one another with a giant pole.  I mean, really.  Jousting doesn't seem manly, it seems cowardly.  If I didn't already have a bad taste in my mouth, this field trip would have psychologically created a distain for the place. 

I arrived at the school and was handed the list of names that would be in my group.  9 boys.  The moms who had groups of 8 girls just looked at me empathetically.  Ok, 9 boys.  I can do this.  I scan the list.  Sebastian.  He is a doll.  And a handful.  His teacher approached at that moment to let me know that Sebastian came to school super pumped, and said that he didn't take his ADHD meds this morning because he wanted to have "the BEST day EVER!"  Super.  Thanks parents. 

The bus ride was uneventful, and as I am gathering my baseball team, another teacher calls me over.  This time with an epi-pen in hand, she asks me to keep it close by and does a run through on how to administer it.  I ask Jack what he's allergic to.  He say he doesn't really know.  Um, What?  He says they think it's environmental, but haven't pinpointed what sets him off.  Super.  Let's head off into a dustbowl full of crap in the air and hope you don't die. 

Ok, off we go and thus began the day of 123456789...123456789...123456789... I counted this all day long.  It was student day at the festival, so we were walking with a crowd the whole day.  It wasn't long before I realized I had a wanderer.  Christian.  And he wasn't listening when I called to him.  Which is when Jayce fed me the little morsel of info that he was partially deaf.  Christian was supposed to be wearing hearing aids, but probably wanted to have the best day ever too, and didn't wear them.  This was most definitely NOT my best day ever. 

I don't know what these boys went home and told their parents, and frankly, I don't care.  I count the day as a success because I didn't yell at or lose anyone. 

Quick story to remember for Jayce:

Jayce is my guy who is famous for kitchen pickpocketing.  He will have snaked a piece of gum from the inside zipper of my purse hanging on a hook without having missed a step.  Candy in the top cupboard behind other gross food he would never touch?  Swiped.  Chocolate chips are stored in my freezer.  They disappear by the handful.  Natural consequences are always better than inflicted ones. 

He and his dad were having a nice game of chocolate chip tossing one day.  You know, when you toss one in the air and try to catch in your mouth?  They had been at it for a while, and there were a handful of chocolate chips on the floor, so they scooped them up and recycled them into the game. (gross)  What Jayce didn't know, and Jason didn't remember, was that Flapjacks dog food had been spilled in that very spot in the kitchen earlier.  As the game came to a close, Jayce took his remaining handful of chocolate chips and popped them all into his mouth.  As he chomped away he knew there was something funky about it.  Jason started to tell him it was dog food, but after Jayce started to gag, he changed it to "probably just bad chocolate, just swallow it".