Field Trips and Normalcy

After years of guilt trips (spoiler alert Zane guilt really has no effect on me) I finally was able to go on a field trip with Zane. Let me be clear his previous field trips included trips to the zoo and pumpkin patches. All day, outside events where I would be in charge of multiple children. Crazy town, which I was not really too sad about missing. I was working on all these days I wasn't just not going on field trips. So imagine my excitement with the second grade spring field trip was scheduled for a day I was off work and it was a trip to the movies. Perfect!

Zane was so excited for our day together. He was going to get to sit with his two best buddies at the new fancy movie theater. Let me just say how proud I am of Zane's friend choices. Zane is admittedly friends with everyone, but the people that he hangs out with the most are the sweetest, kindest, smartest kids. At the first of the year he was very sad that his best friend from first grade had moved to a different school. They had bonded over their love of pirates and their lack of enjoyment in playing football and fortnight. The first few weeks of this year I could tell he was frustrated with not having a best buddy. As time went on he has found new best friends. A boy and a girl in his class who all like Harry Potter, who like to pretend to be fancy British gentlemen, who will go along with his pretend adventures on the playground instead of playing football or talking about video games. They are the smartest kids in their class, they talk about books, and are competitive, to a fault, about who can reach their AR goal first. Earlier in the year I brought Zane lunch and he invited his two friends to come eat with us. They were polite, funny, kind, and called me Mrs. Korenak. They are the sweetest little kiddos and I'm thrilled Zane has found such a great group of friends.

So I was in charge of these three musketeers, and as chaperone of the year, I bought boxes of candy for them all, even making sure sweet B had something that she wasn't allergic to (she's allergic to most things). Then we got cozy in our reclining chairs and enjoyed a movie. This is the absolute best case scenario field trip. He got to see all his other friends during bathroom breaks and when the movie was over. I checked him out of school for the day and my favorite part of the day was what followed, some one on one time with Zane that did not involve any type of doctor's appointment. I took him to eat his favorite lunch, white mac and cheese at Panera Bread, which he usually only gets to eat after doctor's appointments or procedures. He told me in great detail about his baseball game the night before, which I had missed since Rowan also had a game. He told me about the book he was reading and which book he wanted to read next.

Then we went to find him some new cleats and shoes for my ever growing boy. This was our first shoe buying trip where he is officially in men's shoes. He's eight and is wearing a size seven shoe. I wear a size nine so this seems insane. He also is wearing boys large shorts and his officially 100% too big. He, very sweetly, was concerned that he was going to be coming home with two new pairs of shows and his summer quota of shorts, and Rowan wasn't going to get anything. Since he's so kind I let him pick out a pair of shorts for Rowan was well. Zane was beyond excited to get to pick Thatcher up early so he would have time alone to play with him before Zane got home. Thatcher was thrilled to see him and they had a blast together.

As we were going through our calm, fun, afternoon together I stepped back and was grateful for the calmness and normalcy of it all. There was no drama, no fits, no stresses, no tough conversations or hard things to do (except a brief conversation about how wearing men sized shoes does not make you a man). He was polite, kind, gracious for all the things I bought him, and for me coming with him to the movie. He was excited to play with his baby brother and happy to go outside with him for hours instead of watching TV. He happily helped me do chores and preparing dinner.

Nothing about this seems note worthy I know, but it so is. A year ago at this time our life was in absolute shambles. Zane didn't have a day where he didn't have a full blown meltdown, about something, for months. There were always fights, always hard conversations to have, always pain, always stress, and our house was a ball of dread. All of that makes me beyond grateful and painfully aware of how amazing a calm, normal, regular day is. That has been a big silver lining from all of our hard journey last year, I am grateful for the normal. I'm grateful for schedules that are full, but only of baseball games, work, and school things. There is nothing on my calendar that I'm dreading. There is no huge dark cloud hanging over all of us. It's lovely and Tuesday was a normal, boring day, that seemed like a miracle compared to this time last year.