Today was the day of the
F-Word. It's arrival resulted in someone waking up
2 hours early with pure excitement. And continued with a little boy bouncing off the walls until it was finally time to leave the house.
We saw all sorts of animals...



And I learned quite a bit about spending a day with a group of five year olds.
First of all,
never try to approach the day without a cup of coffee. Big fail on my part. By the time I hit the back door this afternoon, I had a major caffeine craving and a huge headache to go with it. Momma needs her coffee.
Secondly, 5 year olds are completely incapable of keeping their hands to themselves. No matter whether you tell them 50 times to stop, to chill, to sit on their hands. None of it works. And as a result, you will be hung on or have your hair "combed" (aka pulled and twisted for 20 minutes).
But you'll also get lots hand holding and smiles.

Third, keeping track of more than 1 kid makes me buggy. I swear, I've never done more head counts than I did today. I was constantly afraid I'd lose one of them. (Even though, I had a minimum of two holding onto me at any given moment, so it really shouldn't have been too hard.)
And finally, no matter how much fun you have as a chaperone, no matter how much fun the kids have, you still run the risk of your own kid telling you "at least you're not being bossy anymore" when you get home. Apparently,
someone was tired of me telling him to stay with the group. (Or maybe he was tired of me after the 5th time I told him to stop digging for gold.)
And that's another thing I learned. Kindergartners pick more noses, fart more often, and spit more than any other group I've ever seen before. Who knew that the ten minutes after lunch has been dubbed "stink time" by the girls? Though after today, I can completely understand why.