I'm A Bad Parent

Kind of.

I realized today that my sense of humor can sometimes be that of a ten year old boys. I don't think that's good.

Today was a field trip with Chase's class. We went to the historical museum of our town and a walking tour. Let me tell you something, I never knew half of what went on here. It's pretty impressive, if you like history. I like to know what's happened in condensed form. The short version. Going through castles and churches and walking tours bore me like they would a child. I also only can sit through about half a Broadway play until I start to fidget. I do feel guilty about this, like I wish I could gather up some more interest. I can't.

The first part of the tour was fun. It was all about quilts. They had all these antique quilts that looked like it was impossible that a person instead of a machine made. There was one that this woman who was crippled and only her fingers worked and there was over 10,000 pieces in it. Insane. Seriously. It was cool. Then after all the quilts there was an art project for the kids. I helped Chase. That was fun.

The second half of the day was the walking tour. First it was raining. It was cold. The tour guide kept pointing out "datestones" that showed the buildings were from forever ago. I know some people love this (Hi Mom) but not me. I did have to act interested though because I saw the exact same far off look that I get in Chase's eyes about 5 minutes in. My little angel, he was bored. Bored until the tour guide that was about 98 years old started sneezing. Sneezing and talking at the same time. My group was 5 boys. The first time she sneezed and keep speaking they all grinned at each other. The second time one kid spit gatorade out by accident. For some reason, perhaps my own boredom or the look on his face made me start laughing. Any of my friends can attest to the fact that once I start laughing I can't stop. I have to picture myself in a plane crashing or getting stuck in a well or being surrounded by snakes like Cher in The Witches of Eastwick or something like that to make it stop. I'm not trying to be rude. I don't want to be disrespectful, it just won't stop.

Fortunately I was at the back of the line. No one noticed but my boys. We came to then end of the tour. My chewing gum that had served as my lunch was like cardboard. I pulled it out and it got stuck to my finger. I tried to flick it off and it landed on one of the boys sweatshirts and stuck there. More rounds of laughter out of my little hooligans. Whoops.

They were all riled up. We had 20 minutes left. The museum people wanted us to walk through the museum with all the antique furniture and delicate things. I didn't think my group would make it through without breaking something. I okayed with the teacher then took them in the auditorium and let them get on the stage and play charades. After a while another Mom came in and said they shouldn't be on the stage. My bad.

On the way home Chase said, "Thanks for coming today Mom." I told him I had fun, it was really fun. He said, "Tomorrow if my teacher asks what my favorite part of the field trip was, I'm going to tell her it was playing charades."

Maybe not a bad parent, maybe just a little childish...