Field trips are for the birds.

We had a not so good experience today.

I got a note in Joel's preschool box on Monday saying that today they would be having a field trip to a local pizza place where they would learn how to make pizza.

Great.

Here's the catch. The parents had to take their own kids, stay there for 1 1/2 hours, and then the preschool day was over. That's it. So really there was no preschool that day, just lunch at a very overpriced pizza place.

I grumbled but tried to have a good attitude as I loaded up all the boys and trekked over to the restaurant.

Long story short:
Brody screamed 90% of the time.
Jesse whined, dropped toys under the table, and had a bad attitude 90% of the time.
Joel preferred sitting with us (I have no idea why--see previous 2 sentences) over sitting with his classmates and interacting--which I see as the point of preschool.
I paid $8.00 for a bowl of watery pasta.

We could have re-created this whole scenario at home, but saved $8.00 and a whole lot of stress.

Since I figured the morning couldn't get much worse, we walked next door to the grocery store after the "field trip" to get food for dinner. I pushed Brody in the stroller--now just quietly moaning, instead of screaming--and pulled the boys behind me in a cart. It worked well...I might try that again.

But then Joel decided he needed to use the restroom. I don't really want to go into all of the reasons why I HATE public restrooms with small children. I'll just say that he decided to take a really LONG time and go #2 which apparently required him to take all of his clothes off and lay them on the floor next to the toilet. Great.

I would have put an end to that germ party right away except that I was tending to "the moaner" and "the whiner" (otherwise known as Jesse and Brody). "The whiner" was fascinated with putting his hands in the trash and "the moaner" spit up so much that he soaked his entire shirt and the car seat straps so I was a bit preoccupied.

A lady came in with a cute little girl. They did their business quickly and on the way out she said, "Oh, 3 boys, bless your heart!" I almost asked her if we could trade.

I did discover that the bathroom had lovely smelling soap and to this point, that has been the highlight of my day. Sad but true. In fact, I can still smell it now.