field trip

Lincoln had his first kindergarten field-trip last week. Sherry was nice enough to watch Ollie so I could go along. Lincoln was so excited about it, and it was nice nice to have some one-on-one time with him. He's such a great kid and I know sometimes I think he needs to act more grown up than a six year-old has the capacity to be but, he's patient with me.

Going to functions like this, with tons of kids all with their own little issues and getting to see other parents interacting with their own kids, really gives you a fresh perspective on things. There are days when I feel like I'm just not getting through to him and wonder if he's the spazziest, most absent minded, worried, and sensitive kid on the planet. Days that I just know his grandparents are thinking "He must get this behavior from his mom, because Josh was never like this." I hate that most of Linc's not-so-perefect personality traits do come from my side of the family, but on the plus side a lot of his completely amazing attributes do too!

So after spending a day with kids melting down, sassing their moms, refusing to eat, not listening, punching, pinching, spitting, not being polite, saying embarrassing things, speaking out of turn, whining, and — most important — parents who didn't always handle the situations perfectly, I realized a beautiful truth. Lincoln is 6! All of this comes with the territory and really he's a pretty amazing and great kid, not that I didn't know all of this before, but sometimes I guess every parent can use a reminder. I came home feeling so grateful for my sweet son, and our beautiful(not perfect) relationship.

I was the slacker mom that came unprepared. I guess I didn't read the flyer they sent home carefully enough. I thought we were visiting a nature center, which we were, but I failed to realize that it was up in the mountains where there was about 2 feet of snow and frigid temps, and that all of our activities were outside. Everyone else came decked out in all of their snow gear, Linc came in his ripped jeans and sneakers. Nice one mom! The above picture is Linc trying desperately to warm up his completely numb feet so he doesn't miss out on sledding. He only lasted about 10 minutes of the snowshoeing, which was a bummer, because they were out discovering different types of animal tracks, which is something that he normally loves doing, but by then his feet were really starting to hurt.

We rejoined the group for sledding and he had so much fun despite his lack of waterproof snow gear. Jeez, even his hat is too small, poor kid.

He fearlessly dives off onto the hill and picks up some serious speed on the way down. It was the perfect sledding hill, we both wished we had one in our backyard.

This is Linc and one of his favorite school friends, Cooper.

This is us right after what Linc described as "the best mac and cheese ever, mom". I'm convinced that it just tasted better after a whole day of hard play and freezing temps, because to me it was kind of gross.

We had such a great time, and I even got to drive up with a bunch of other moms which was so fun. I feel a little more connected with what's going on at school, which feels good. His school in New York sent weekly emails, calenders and we volunteered every Monday for journal time, so after moving here, I've felt a bit disconnected. This helped to bridge that gap a bit, what a fun day with an amazing kid!