A very enlightening field trip

I was able to help on Tay's class field trip last week. I was really looking forward to it. I fell in love with Tay's class while teaching Junior Achievement and I was excited to get to know her classmates better. I arranged to not have Dex that day, and asked my mom to see the boys off to school and stay with Easton so that I could be with Taylor all day.

When I got to the school Tay was in charge of writing down the names of everyone who would be in my group. She was goofing off and trying to be the center of attention (pretty normal behavior for her lately) and I just had a gut feeling that the day might not be as fun as I had planned.

I was right. My daughter is a drama queen. She seems to be pretty popular in her class and apparently she is involved in a little love triangle (her on again off again best school friend, Aubree is in love with a boy named Holland. Holland is in love with Taylor. And Taylor is in love with herself) that creates a lot of contention in her little group of friends.

I sat by myself both on the way to and on the way back from the Clark Planetarium, because apparently I was saying things that "embarrassed" my dear daughter;) Then, at the Planetarium, while all the other kids in my group seemed to really be diggin my jokes and were all about hanging out with me and having me take their picture and help them at the different exhibits, my own daughter wanted nothing to do with me. Ouch.

After the planetarium we headed to Liberty Park where Taylor proceeded to give me, Holland and Aubree the silent treatment because we called her out on something she did that we didn't find funny. If there is anything you should know about my dear angel child, it is that you don't call her out. She doesn't handle it well. After that she was the brattiest brat I have ever seen. I was embarrassed for her. My daughter seems to have quite a few people in her class wrapped around her finger and she knows just what to do to get there attention. It was like watching a miniature version of Big Brother. Alliances were being formed, bad mouthing was going on and cat fights were breaking out. When I pulled Taylor aside to confront her on her behavior she shut down. I WANTED to slap her in the middle of the playground and call a cab to take us home. Instead I held my tongue and prayed that I'd have the strength to not beat her in public.

Somewhere between the park and the walk back to the bus she made up with Aubree and Holland and their group of friends was back to getting along. It was so odd to watch. I don't remember being that way in the THIRD GRADE.

On the bus there was a group of like 10 kids that sat at the front with their teacher and talked quietly amongst themselves. Then there was me, the other mom who helped, and her daughter (her daughter actually wanted to sit with her) in the middle of the bus. Then there was a group of 14 kids on the back of the bus. They were loud and obnoxious and were playing jokes on each other and singing pop songs and making awkward attempts to flirt. Can you guess which group my daughter was in? I was beyond baffled by her behavior, which I must clarify, wasn't ALL bad, just different than how I ever was; I was always a front of the bus kid.

This field trip made me realize, my daughter is so different than me. She is having a completely different school experience than I ever had. She certainly has a lot of her dad's charisma and people skills. She is more popular than I ever was in school. Honestly, I don't know how to relate to her right now. She ended up grounded this weekend for the way she acted at the park and Kendrick made her write me and her teacher an apology letter.

Please, please, please someone tell me this behavior will end soon! My daughter is a knock out. And a brat. Those two make for a very unpleasant combination when it comes to parenting. And she's only 8. I can't even imagine the drama that will ensue when she is 18.

Dominic wearing LileAnna's elastic

Taylor, Aubree and Amanda

My group

LileAnna and Gloria

Taylor and Aubree

Tay's 3rd Grade Class (she was still giving the silent treatment to her friends but she jumped in the front of the picture and plastered a smile on her face that would have you believe she was as sweet as pie that whole day)

Some of the 3rd graders at Liberty Park

Taylor, Aubree, AJ and Holland (green shirt)

Aiden, Trey and David

If you take anything from this post I hope it isn't that my daughter is a brat. Or that I don't love her guts. Because I do, and she doesn't always act this way. Instead I hope you see that if nothing else, my blog is honest. It's not all sunshine and butterflies over here. If we do something that isn't fun, I'll tell ya is wasn't fun. If my kids are being charming, I'll make sure to brag about it. And if I'm frustrated, you'll read about it. Because to me, blogging is not about painting a pretty picture for all of my readers. It's about documenting my family's memories the way they happened and trying to capture those feelings the best I can. My hope is that we can look back on these memories and either learn from or bask in them.