Our attendance at Conduit conflicted with at least 5 events that were important to the kids. Mostly the kids were happy to exchange these local events for a trip to stay with their cousins. The one thing that Kiki truly lamented, was missing Field Day at her school. Fortunately the problem was easily remedied because Link attends a different school and his Field Day was today. I just pulled Kiki out of school and let her attend with Link.
Field Day is a big deal to my kids. Last year (http://sandratayler.livejournal.com/2005/05/25/) I didn’t go to any of it. I just picked up Link and Kiki when it was over. This year Link spoke to me several times to make sure that I was actually coming. So it was this morning that I woke my Link and Kiki early so that they could be dropped off for the distance run. Then I hustled home to dress Gleek and Patches. I snarfed down the wonderful breakfast burrito that Howard made for me, urged kids into the car and we were back at the school by 9 am. I rendezvoused with Kiki by the big inflatable slides that had been rented for the occasion. Link spent most of the morning with his class, but the rest of us hung out by these inflatable toys.
I actually enjoyed Field Day this year. Perhaps it was the lack of frantic running and chasing. Gleek and Kiki were content with the inflatable toys, so I could sit in one place and just watch. Theoretically visitors aren’t supposed to be on the slides at the same time as school classes, but in truth no one minded my girls being there. No one minded any of the other kids who showed up for a turn or two either. Patches went up the bouncy slides a couple of times, but mostly he sat next to me huddled under his blanket. He’d worn a tank top and was cold. When Patches huddled into my lap I called Howard, who rescued the poor little boy by bringing him a sweatshirt and our stroller. Patches climbed into the stroller and fell asleep. Within 30 minutes I realized he’d been so cold because he was running a fever. Poor little guy.
Fun on the inflatable slide ended with a bloody nose. Turning around to see your child crying, blood streaming down her face is not the most pleasant of experiences, but after 4 kids and 5 years of parenting Gleek it isn’t all that alarming either. Blood alone does not phase me anymore. Noses can produce an alarming amount of blood very quickly. Fortunately while bloody noses are very messy, they generally do not indicate a truly harmful injury. It would be nice if I could claim foresight that Gleek and I were wearing old shirts today. It wasn’t foresight, it was laziness that didn’t make me dress myself and Gleek up this morning. In this case it works in my favor because after being baked by the sun for several hours, no way are those blood stains coming out. Gleek was very alarmed at the amount of blood which leaked from her nose. But when she realized that the next item on the agenda was buy to treats from the concessions stand, she cheered right up. She was also cheered by the awe that some of the gradeschool kids expressed at the sheer quantity of blood soaking her shirt.
The concession stand was a main focal point for the kids. They’d all brought their spending money. In Kiki’s case $10 worth of spending money. Kiki loves to buy things, so she cheerfully sprung for a ring pop and a babybottle for Patches. These “baby bottles” are candies that my kids always beg for. I hate them. They are hardened flavored sugar that is meant to be dipped into powdered flavored sugar. It is all formed into the shape of a baby bottle which encourages the kids to act like babies while ingesting highly refined sugars. Just looking at these baby bottles gives me a sugar headache. I’ll plan grocery shopping trips so that I won’t have to argue about buying baby bottle candy. Today I let them buy whatever they wanted as long as they spent their own money. All of them got baby bottles and Kiki came home with a box filled with stuff which she lovingly shared among the other kids. I did require them all to actually eat some of the lunch pizza that was served. They were pretty good about that. All except for poor Patches who licked his ring pop and then fell asleep with the baby bottle in his mouth and a layer of sticky all over his face.
We got home at 1:30 pm. Now they’re all quietly watching a movie. We’ve all had plenty of outdoors for one day.