Dear Elli,
I just arrived home from my very first experience chaperoning a field trip for your first grade class. We went to the library.
As I write this, I'm trying desperately to stay awake. There are twenty six students in your class, and there were three chaperones. Sounds easy, right? Piece of cake!
Your class was actually really well-behaved, and I truly had a blast with each and every one of you. It's just simply exhausting to keep track of twenty six first graders for an entire day. I have no idea how teachers do it. If I were a teacher, the liquor store cashier and I would be on a first name basis.
So we all piled on the bus to go downtown to the library. No less than four children immediately asked to sit next to me on the bus. These children don't know me. They've never seen me in their lives. I could be a serial killer or a child hater or just plain boring. They couldn't possibly know what I am. But they wanted to sit next to me nonetheless. I must appear trustworthy.
I sat with you, because you're my favorite. And because I know you won't get motion sickness and puke on me. Thank God, nobody puked.
I never realized it before, but first graders smell funny. Individually, they smell fine. But when you get a whole bus load of them together, they stink. I don't understand it. Most of you look clean enough. Hair brushed, clean clothes, decent shoes. But you guys really are foul. I desperately wanted to open a window, but the teachers seemed to think there was no need. Apparently, they are accustomed to the smell of fifty first graders jammed on a school bus.
So we got to the library and everyone had to pee. It took roughly thirty minutes for everyone to pee and get drinks from the drinking fountain. And by now, I had nine little groupies hanging with me. What can I say, I'm the shit!
By 10:39AM, everyone was starving. If I had a dollar every time a kid asked me when we were having lunch, we could've all gone to Chipotle instead of eating our sack lunches on the floor of the library lobby. I shared my Doritos with a little boy because he was cute and his mom didn't pack him any Doritos. She gave him an apple. He offered me a bite of his apple as an even trade for my Doritos. He'll probably grow up to be an attorney.
We heard lots of stories and learned about China and Mongolia and Ghana and Norway. Then we all peed again.
We took a picture with all of the first grade classes together and then we got on the bus and left. I did not ask permission to open a window on the way home. I just did it because I'm a grown ass woman and I do what I want. And because now all of you were looking kind of sweaty and I just couldn't deal with the thought of that experience without some air flow.
One of my new groupies asked me if I knew how to make a paper airplane out of his worksheet from the Chinese lesson you all received. Me? A paper airplane? Little did he know, I'm totally the most bad ass paper airplane maker on the freaking planet!
I may have slightly miscalculated the appropriateness of making airplanes out of educational material, and I grossly miscalculated that kid's ability to keep his mouth shut.
The moment I handed him his airplane, he started waiving the thing around until every kid on the bus begged me for one. I made eighteen paper airplanes, of which all went flying through the air the moment we exited the bus and walked into the school. And they yelled, "Thanks, Mrs. Odom! Your airplanes are AWESOME!" And now the teachers at your school know I was the airplane maker and they probably think I'm an asshole.
But guess what? You had a blast, and so did all of the other kids. And so did I. This chaperoning thing was totally worth it. Before we got off the bus, you were beaming. You whispered in my ear, "See Mom, they all love you. You are the coolest mom here. Thank you for coming today! This was the best day ever!"
And that's exactly why I'll gladly smell a bus load of first graders any day of the week for you. Because it made you happy. But I still scrubbed my hands like a surgeon the moment I walked in the door.
I love you. And I'm glad you like having me around.
Mom
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