Today is school excursion day.

I put my name down to go. So did Grumpy. I’m not sure why, as I have no idea how he was going to manage it, given he not only had to pick Godzilla up from kinder, but another little boy as well.

He finally said, at the last minute, that, ok, he probably would have to miss out wouldn’t he? As nothing else had been or could now be rearranged? Um. Yes.

Of course, my comments over the last 4 weeks relating to this went unheeded, and we had a very distressed little boy on walking to school, because, not only did he want his dad to come and thought he was coming, but that the teacher had allocated small groups of children to each attending parent, and he had been allocated children. Monkey Boy was in a tizz about how Grumpy’s non-attendance was going to throw the whole plan into complete disarray.

So, a very thoughtful Grumpy informed me “just tell them I’m not coming.”

Um, NO WAY! You created the mess, you didn’t listen to my suggestions, you sort it.

And off I went, walking the kids to school. In the cold, and rain and puddles. Ah, great day for an excursion.

Arrive at school and gather with children and other attending parents to await our instruction as to how the day was going to function.

All organised with military precision. We were allocated children, lists, itenerary and the rest. The teacher read out the children and which parent they were going with. Parents had either two, three or four children.

Very pregnant parent (ie, me) was allocated four. Very thoughtful.

My own, another grade 2 kid, a grade 4 kid who thought she was far too cool to hang out with a parent and two grade 2 kids, and kept buggering off to be with her friend, whom she had clearly been seperated from for a reason, and a special needs kid who “has a tendancy to run off, so you need to keep a close eye on him. Ok?”

Yeah. Thanks. Hilarious.

On that instruction, we head off, some 45 children and 12 adults, for a brisk (and cold wet) walk to the train station, receive frantic, stressed text message from a friend, attempt to corral children into an area, not easy when they all want to stand along the yellow line to watch the train arrive (in some 17 minutes time) and wonder what the ettiquette is regarding texting whilst in supervision of group of children on school excursion, one of whom is too cool and one of whom has at tendency to run away.

Text anyway.

Alight train, have everyone insist that I sit, being pregnant and all, my legs have apparently developed some weird condition or have disappeared altogether, making it obvioulsy impossible for me to stand. According to everyone else, that is.

Not easy, given my little group had spread themselves across carriage, mostly thanks to Too Cool Girl, and standing made it easier to keep an eye on them. That, and standing in front of and over the top of Run Away Boy also made it easier for me to prevent him actually running away.

If I was gonna lose anyone, I was at least going to wait until we had commenced the excursion proper, and not lose them right at the start.

The day went well. We stopped for morning tea where coffee was readily available nearby (a Coffee Run was immediately organised, then we could deal with the kids), we head off on first stop, back to cafes for lunch and second part of excursion completed.

The second part consisted of entering shops in China Town and asking questions of the shop keepers as to the origin and meaning behind particular objects. Inevitably, the first shop our little group enters is manned by an old, very Caucasian man with a grumpy streak. My immediate thought was that this was not the point of the exercise and made motion to the children that we would look at another shop. Preferably one that operated by someone of Chinese descent.

That made more sense to me. But the kids had started exploring and were fascinated by a display consisting of jade and gold statuettes of various animals. The tackled the excercise with aplomb, enquiring of the shop keeper as to what the animals meant.

“Oh, that’s them, you know. That bloody January, February thing. You know, Whaddaya call it? That bloody star signs crap.”

Right. Don’t want my group reporting back on that particular subject and quickly usher them out with a “Fabulous, isn’t that fabulous, kids? Lets go check out some other shops and see what else we can find out about. Isn’t that great? Go. NOW!”

 Locate some more appropriate stores, gather required information and paraphernalia and head back to the meeting piont to catch the return train home.

Wait around for some other groups, tie shoe laces, cuddle weary kids, salivate at smell of coffee that I know I’m not going to have the time to get, or peace to drink. Once everyone accounted for, we race down the escalator to find our train ready to depart, and the parents set about ensuring 45 kids (we think) and 12 adults get onto the train before it actually does depart.

Someone does head count of children spread over one and a half carriages. In the rush to get down the escalator, I have lost Too Cool Girl and Runaway Boy. More concerned about the latter, I just check with teacher that someone responsible (ie not me) actually does have him, launching some kind of frantic, frenzied search by all adults and most of the kids to see where he is.

Right beside me, apparently.

Arrive back at school just after the bell, cold, wet and tired. Monkey Boy and I well and truly ready for a sleep.

Fortunatley, I had called Grumpy to come pick us up, which he did. Ah, yes, another little person in our possession for the evening. This requires some more Military Precision organising.

I set the three kids and Grumpy up with a DVD, food and a couple of blankets, head off for a hot bath for some 20 minutes and sneak into bed.

Easy!