As a birthday present today, Mom let me be a chaperon for Charles’ fourth grade expedition to the Museum of Science and Industry. Because of the number of students I couldn’t ride on the bus and so had to drive myself there and back after waking up at 5:30 AM to get ready. Originally I had been scheduled to watch over Charles, Josie, Patrick, and Miles. Erica was added when a couple of other parents didn’t show up for their child bonding opportunity.
I would have greatly appreciated the ability to fill this post with a long list of disasters but the trip was mostly uneventful. The roads were bad for the first 50 miles or so, with noticeable sludge, but that cleared up. I even remembered how to activate the wind shield wiper fluid in the car (it’s not automatic with the momentary wiper activation). The trip timing was such that we missed the heavy parts of rush hour both ways. I also had good traction. During the original planning Mom didn’t want me to take the car because the tires were near bald and Mom figured I would end up under a semi, given the heavy traffic, poor conditions, and my level of driving skills. So back on Satuday I got four new all weather tires. I will admit, I could easily tell the difference just driving around town.
I let the kids go where they wanted, although they had to so the “Storm Center” exhibit because that was related to their current area of study in class. It is a new exhibit and quite interesting. The kids did well in terms of negotiating amongst themselves on which exhibits to see. During lunch they created a common prioritized list of exhibits which we followed in the afternoon until it was time to leave.
We got home around 5:30, and I just crashed out after that. Mom had thought perhaps a movie but she was tired too so we called it a day. At least I got my french silk pie!
