Yesterday I had the glorious opportunity to chaperone my third grader’s field trip to the Maryland Science Center in Baltimore.

What you need to know before I begin my tale is that I was a field trip virgin.  Partly because, as a working mom, I haven’t had much opportunity to accompany my little ones on field trips and partly because my name was never drawn in the classroom lottery.

I was a newbie.  A  “green” mom.  In other words: FRESH MEAT.

My son personally picked his posse of pals for me to accompany.  TERRIFIC.  I sensed danger from the moment I was handed my list.  Thankfully, one of my gaggle of four boys had the flu.  I remember looking with pity on the other parent chaperones and thinking, “Woo hoo!  Only have three kids.  This will be EASY!’

How wrong I was.

First thing I did wrong that day was forget to pack a lunch.  In my naivete I thought that I could just stop by the ole snack bar and get myself a little something to take the edge off.  Like a coffee.  Or a sandwich.  Perhaps a muffin?

OH NO.

We went straight to the brown bag area and I ended up mournfully watching my group power down a lunches fit for seven women. We are talking massive amounts of food, people.  Only my own offspring offered me some Doritos. Swell.  (My son’s teacher did take pity on me and offer me her sandwich, which I declined because I felt like an ass.)

After the feasting it was then time to explore and by that I mean sprint to the nearest exhibit.  They were immediately touching this and flicking that and whooping and hollering and just having themselves a merry ole time.  I tried to corral them long enough to get them to find the answers to a scavenger hunt that we were SUPPOSED TO FOLLOW.  I pretty much gave up on that nonsense in the first 20 minutes.  There was no focusing these boys. How was I supposed to find out what the NAME of the Maryland State dinosaur was when I was too busy pulling them OFF OF THE DISPLAY of the Maryland State Dinosaur?

Just a guess, but I am pretty sure you are not supposed to climb up a 20 foot dino display.

You wanna know the exhibits that were of specific fascination to my little hoodlums, I mean, boys?  The bed of nails and the blood lab.

Surprised?  Yeah, me neither.

I’ll have you know that on the way home, I totally fell asleep.  I was EXHAUSTED.  Think what you want, jut know that I wasn’t the only parent snoozing away.  Every. Single. One. Of. Us. Dozed. Off.

So what did I learn from my little classroom outing?  NEXT TIME, ASK FOR A GROUP OF GIRLS.

GUESS WHAT? I’m up for a “Best Parenting Blog” nomination from Nickelodeon’s Parent’s Connect!  Won’t you vote for me?  Do it here!