Monday, May 6, 2013

field trip

I need to brag about my first-born for a minute. I sometimes could burst with pride for this girl.

A field trip information sheet came home a few weeks ago. It might be the final field trip of the year and Emma wanted a parent to chaperone this time. Because I can't yet leave Sadie for 4 hours, and can't fathom leaving her with someone - anyone! - for 4 hours to endure her antics, we deferred to Spencer to see if he could swing it. He works a ton and has meetings every single day. He looked at his calendar. Two meetings.

He told her he would try to move them. She had a week to turn in the papers.

Each evening Emma would sweetly ask her dad if he thought he could go. He sometimes forgot to try to move the meeting, and sometimes he was in the process of getting the day cleared up. He would tell her to remind him in the morning. She never nagged or whined, but would calmly remind him to keep trying.

Finally he figured out how he could make it to her field trip, though he was quite indifferent about the whole thing. He told her he would be there and she looked happy. But our neighbor told us later just how excited Emma was as they walked to school that morning. Jumping up and down, screaming that her dad was going on a field trip! I'm so glad that I heard about this; I immediately called Spencer and told him just what a BIG DEAL it was to her that he was going. He felt guilty for not deciding and prioritizing that sooner.

It was a good lesson to both of us that we should do anything in our power to make our individual kids happy. Really, those little things sometimes make the biggest impact. And it reinforced to me just what a good girl Emma is. Her maturity blows me away. She was so excited to show off her dad to her class and even wanted to go buy a new shirt for the occasion.


They had a great time. A train ride up the canyon! It didn't even seem to matter that it was 94 degrees. I think Emma was the happiest girl in her class.

I love that the conductor made an appearance in this photo.

We are already arguing over who gets to go on her field trips next year - they are pretty amazing ones!

3 comments:

Adam and Nicole said...

I was going to tell you this but somehow completely forgot. When she was at Activity Days last Wednesday she kept going on and on about how excited that her dad got to go on the field trip with her. She just kept saying this is going to be such a great week. It was seriously so cute. Also she is seriously the best. We were doing crafts and I was on the floor picking up scrap paper and she was the only one to come over and help pick it up. You have a great girl there. :)

Carly said...

Her field trips are way cooler than mine ever were!

hales said...

I love that she "needed" a new outfit for the occasion. Like, duh.