Warning: Field Trip Gripe Fest

Why are the things meant to be fun, like a field trip to the zoo, always a struggle? The idea was simple. Go to the zoo. Bring our nature journals and write a few things about the different buildings.

It’d be an easy school day. Right?

Not with my kids. I can’t remember how it all started but my 12 year-old wasn’t excited about the zoo. When I offered to drop him off at his dad’s office to do school work he got real interested in going to the zoo. But by then he had already complained about breakfast (after he got up late, and didn’t brush his teeth or make his bed) and then he proceeded to boss his sister around.

By lunch I had taken away and given back his privilege to go to the zoo several times. (Yeah, I know lousy parenting! But this weekend I took all his toys away and he really seemed to get the idea that he didn’t have to earn fun! So I wanted to give him a second chance to change his behavior.)

Then in the car he (along with his 9 year old brother) feels the need to verbally tear down his younger brother. I then give said brother the opportunity to let the two of them go to the zoo or not. The older boys apologize and younger brother says they could go.

You’d think that would be the end of the trouble. Wrong! 12 year-old whines about not knowing what to write at the first zoo building (his 9 year-old brother has no problem following instructions, by the way) and my 4 year-old runs wild throughout the building.

SIGH! We manage to get through four more buildings with a little more ease, though chasing Grace is still the high point (or should I say low point) of the adventure. A little more struggle with the writing assignments, and we’re finally through the homeschool portion of the zoo visit.

I loosen up, and let them run from exhibit to exhibit. We play at the park, and things go smoothly for while (except for wrestling Grace out of the alligator pit, kidding!) until the very end when I’m tired and exhausted from giving instruction after instruction. “Come here. Let’s go. Don’t do that. Yada, Yada, Yada.” And it’s mostly directed to two of the four (can you guess which two?)

So we’re in the last building and I’m getting ready to leave when I call to them several times, but they are still chattering away, NOT LISTENING, being loud and excited. So I decide to leave the building, sure that they will soon follow. Well, they didn’t. Not right away, anyway. I went back in and met them in the doorway.

When they finally figured out I was gone, Grace refused to come with them and thankfully my 12 year-old had the sense not to leave her. Tired and frustrated, I said we’re going straight home when I had fully intended to ride the zoo train back to the entrance! Instead we walked.

On the way back to the car, 12 year-old decides to parent his younger sister a few more times, driving me totally up the wall, but I kept my cool and told him he better be a cop when he grows up because he loves to tell people what to do.

So here’s my question to all you parenting gurus! What’s wrong with this picture? With my kids? Am I the only one who finds it hard to enjoy my kids especially on field trips? Am I too uptight? (Okay, I know the answer to that question already.)

I know what’s wrong with me, and I’m working on it. Yes, I’m a little too choleric (Get ‘er DONE) and melancholy (Get ‘er done RIGHT) for my kids’ own good, but why can’t they WALK nicely like other kids I see. Why can’t they do as they’re told the first time like some kids? And why can’t they talk with an inside voice when they’re INSIDE!

And here’s the million dollar question…why has my 12 year-old been fighting for control ever since he could walk and talk? I hate to say it, but it’s days like these it’s hard to like my kids, let alone tolerate them.

The biggest quandry of them all…why did God feel I could handle three high-spirited kids. ‘Cause I can’t!

So maybe this isn’t about them, but about me. Maybe I have them because I need them so God can do a work in me. Well, if that’s the case I’m not getting the big picture here because things aren’t getting better. I’m trying to learn how to parent these kids, but maybe I’m too dense. Maybe there’s too many of them! Who knows! All I know is that I’m feeling more and more comfortable with sending them somewhere to school next year. It might be just what our stressed out relationships need!

Sorry, but all you moms who spin a happy, funny tale out of days like these, I don’t get it! What am I missing?