Field Trips 101

When I was growing up I lived for the days in elementary school that we either had a field trip or a read-athon.  In my opinion, there were entirely too few of both.  I would have loved it if every day was field trip or read-athon day!  I'm positive my little guy will be much like his mother and love these two subjects as well.  So, I decided to give Cooper a jump start... at least on the field trips. (More on read-athons later.)

I didn't quite realize what an adventure we'd have when we headed out this morning for Cooper's first "official" field trip: a walk to the grocery store to pick up a few items for dinner.  We've been on many a walk before, but certainly not one with the title "field trip".  Big difference people!  Big difference!  The difference being that any other walk would have allowed us to turn around and head home at any point.  A "field trip", on the other hand, has a specific destination that must be reached before returning home.  Soooo... basically I pretty much sorely miscalculated our departure time as well as the distance to our destination.  I'm sure if I were a more seasoned mother I'd have taken into account that nap time was right around the corner, and our destination was NOT! 

It was about 3 miles round trip to the grocery store and back (which, I might add, never seems quite so far in the car).  As we got started life was good.  I was happy, and my Little Stinker Bug was happy.  With the sunlight that was drenching his shirt...

                      and lots of stroller toys...

                      he had plenty to keep his eyes and hands busy...

...but not for long.  We probably made it a third of the way there before he was squirming and fussing.  (Is it possible for a 4 month old to throw a tantrum, because that's more like what it was.  Wish I would have taken a picture of that!)  Needless to say, we didn't make it much farther before I was holding him AND pushing the stroller.

In order to make our "field trip" more enjoyable for both of us, I decided to let my little mister be the driver instead.  He was pretty good too!

  Occasionally he stopped to take in everything going on around him.

That's when I realized that this was really the first time he had seen all the cars passing by, and buildings and shops.  Usually in either the stroller or the car he's in his car seat where all he can really see is the sky or maybe the tree tops.  He was very observant today and looking intently at everything.

After we got our items from the store it was back to the driver's seat he went.  But not even 5 minutes into our trip back home he was pretty straight forward in letting me know that he was tired and done being the driver.  I guess when all is said and done, sky and tree tops are enough for a tired baby boy...

...enough to put him right to sleep.

And when the binki gets evicted that's when I know he's good and gone...

...at least until we get home.  (He woke up right after I took this picture... of course!)

After daddy got home, we told him all about our field trip... and just talking about it put our little guy right back to sleep.

Yea... I'm pretty sure he's gonna love field trips when he gets older... just like his mommy!