WDWFM - Not Participating In Life
It's one of those days for me. I can't seem to wake up. I'm not grumpy, but I can tell that I'm not my normal merry self either. What's up with that? Perhaps the fieldtrip with my son took more out of me than I thought it would. I know that I woke up yesterday with legs that were telling me that I had more muscles that aren't being put to good use than I thought.
Here's my gripe: Why is it that parents will go on a fieldtrip with their kids and not participate with them? I was the sole parent who chose to get in there and have fun with the kids. The rest of the moms (and one dad) sat outside the area and just talked amongst themselves.
The school went to a play place where the kids could play in the foam ball pit, play miniature golf and then go through a series of mini-classes that taught about weather. When we arrived at the establishment, our group was the first to enter the pit. The kids walked in, but they weren't really playing. I saw the problem: No one knew what the room was capable of doing. I ran upstairs, quickly threw some balls into a container and started pelting the kids with foam balls.
Oh. My. Lands! You should have seen the look of understanding that crossed their faces. Squeals of glee could be heard throughout the room as the kids quickly ran upstairs to shoot each other with balls. I totally got pelted a time or two for all my trouble. Kids!
I quickly headed down and told some other kids to start throwing balls into the machine in the center of the room. Over time, the machine would blast several balls into the air all over the room. This produced more screams of delight.
For the piece de resistance, I had the kids start vacuuming up balls, but I didn't tell them why. They also gathered balls to throw into another vacuum-type machine. Soon I heard a beeping sound so I gathered all the kids to one spot, backed up and watched as a huge bucket dumped all the balls onto the kids. You would have thought that they had died and gone to heaven, they were so happy!
It was the same for the rest of the day, even on the bus. But one joy I had was that several of the kids were requesting to sit by me on the way home. We played charades, sang songs and overall had a wonderful time with each other. I had a feeling that they were glad to have an adult talk with them in a way that didn't involve yelling or disciplining. The smiles were contagious.
And The Boy? He was really happy to have his mom along on the fieldtrip, spending unexpected time with him as he shared me with the other kids.
My other gripe? I didn't download the pictures in time for this post. That definitely doesn't work for me.
What I'm mainly trying to say is that rather than sit on the sidelines, why don't you jump into the game? You might find that you're having just as much fun as the kids. I, for one, did not feel that it was a wasted day, even if my legs aren't really thanking me.
Head on over to the timed-out Shannon's place to see what other things doesn't work!
Here's my gripe: Why is it that parents will go on a fieldtrip with their kids and not participate with them? I was the sole parent who chose to get in there and have fun with the kids. The rest of the moms (and one dad) sat outside the area and just talked amongst themselves.
The school went to a play place where the kids could play in the foam ball pit, play miniature golf and then go through a series of mini-classes that taught about weather. When we arrived at the establishment, our group was the first to enter the pit. The kids walked in, but they weren't really playing. I saw the problem: No one knew what the room was capable of doing. I ran upstairs, quickly threw some balls into a container and started pelting the kids with foam balls.
Oh. My. Lands! You should have seen the look of understanding that crossed their faces. Squeals of glee could be heard throughout the room as the kids quickly ran upstairs to shoot each other with balls. I totally got pelted a time or two for all my trouble. Kids!
I quickly headed down and told some other kids to start throwing balls into the machine in the center of the room. Over time, the machine would blast several balls into the air all over the room. This produced more screams of delight.
For the piece de resistance, I had the kids start vacuuming up balls, but I didn't tell them why. They also gathered balls to throw into another vacuum-type machine. Soon I heard a beeping sound so I gathered all the kids to one spot, backed up and watched as a huge bucket dumped all the balls onto the kids. You would have thought that they had died and gone to heaven, they were so happy!
It was the same for the rest of the day, even on the bus. But one joy I had was that several of the kids were requesting to sit by me on the way home. We played charades, sang songs and overall had a wonderful time with each other. I had a feeling that they were glad to have an adult talk with them in a way that didn't involve yelling or disciplining. The smiles were contagious.
And The Boy? He was really happy to have his mom along on the fieldtrip, spending unexpected time with him as he shared me with the other kids.
My other gripe? I didn't download the pictures in time for this post. That definitely doesn't work for me.
What I'm mainly trying to say is that rather than sit on the sidelines, why don't you jump into the game? You might find that you're having just as much fun as the kids. I, for one, did not feel that it was a wasted day, even if my legs aren't really thanking me.
Head on over to the timed-out Shannon's place to see what other things doesn't work!
Labels: WFMW
posted by Shalee at 6:29 AM
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