Two days at camp week are really BIG. One is Family Day and the other is field trip day. Today was field trip day and we went to the zoo. I love the zoo so I was probably almost as excited as the kids.{As a side note, I think it’s good that I’m going into a profession that lets me do the “kid things” that I still like to do. After all, how many bankers get to spend a Wednesday at the zoo? Exactly. Not very many.} My Buddy partner was Alyssa who is also a preschool teacher/zoo lover. She just went there with her class so she knew the latest zoo news and got all of us excited about the elephant show. We were in charge of four boys: Dylan and Evan(twin brothers), Jacob and Shane. Considering we had four boys, our day went very smoothly.
Everyone from our camp wore matching orange shirts and you know what happened when we got off our bus? We saw another camp with about 125 kids standing in the parking lot wearing orange shirts. So much for standing out. At least the giraffe on our shirts shot us way up there on the coolness scale. The parking lot was also the place of great tragedy. Kelsey, the director, told us the zoo “didn’t have an elephant any more” which is just another way of saying “the elephant died on July 28th”. I would have just said “the elephant died” so we wouldn’t have to deal with the “where did the elephant go?” and “will it be here this afternoon?” questions. It was traumatic for about three minutes but thankfully the kids{and adults}loved the other animals so the poor elephant was soon forgotten. There was even a deer forest we could walk around in. We didn’t get to pet any deer because another group thought the best way to feed the deer from their hands was by charging at them. You’d think by the 10th unsuccessful charge they’d have realized that they scared away every single deer but they didn’t.
Our boys were those zoom here, zoom there, zoom everywhere zoo visitors. Poor Shane could barely keep up with the other three but he was perfectly content to walk…very…very…slowly…while the others ran ahead. Jacob was very kind to him and kept saying “come on, little dude! You can come with us, little dude!” Speaking of Shane, Alyssa and I felt so bad because we didn’t realize{Kelsey forgot to tell us}that the reason he was so much slower than the others and why he didn’t want to eat his lunch was because he’s still having his cancer treatments and probably wasn’t feeling great. We thought he was just one of those slower children; he is only 4 years old. He had a great day at the zoo though which is basically the point of the camp. We want all the former/current children with cancer to have fun just like “normal” children regardless of what they may be going through. Where was I? Oh yes, the boys were really fast. They were so fast we saw all the animals{except the rhino which we somehow missed}two hours before we had to leave. We brought them to a bird show to use up some time but it only made Alyssa and I roll our eyes at the lady telling us how “Baby is the most honest bird we have here are the zoo. She always tells us just how she’s feeling.” Really? And how does she do that? All she does is nod her head and say “cracker”. We finished our field trip by spending the rest of our time at the playground playing with Autumn and Leif then boarded the bus and went back to the hospital.
It was such a fun day but I am so, so, so, so tired from it all. If I don’t go to bed right now, I will be NO good tomorrow. Tomorrow we have a concert so I have to rest up. I can’t be falling asleep during The Chicken Dance or anything.
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