In the Field.

Yesterday was my son's First Grade field trip.  It was a trip to the zoo.  I love a good field trip.  I never board a big yellow school bus without traveling back in time to my own childhood and the excitement of "field trip day".

Growing up, we didn't have much money.  Usually I had the school's hot lunch offering.  On the days I packed a lunch, I had your standard sandwich in waxed paper with chips in a baggie.  BUT on field trip days my mom always packed a lunch worthy of the local doctor's kid.   My Field Trip Lunch always contained a teeny bag of prepackaged Doritoes and a Snack Pack pudding can.  Not a cup, a can.  A mini can of pudding with a pull tab & a metal lid so sharp that you could whittle sticks after lunch was over.  It was pure Heaven.

Now that I am a mom, I look back and realize how much my own mother did to make things in our lives special... on a budget that didn't have a lot of room for bells and whistles.  It was precisely that memory that moved me to let my son bring a "Lunchable" to yesterday's field trip.  It's the modern equivalent of the Snack Pack.  I don't normally pay people to cut cheese and ham into adorable circles and squares.  I'm frugal like that.  But I knew he'd enjoy the pomp and circumstance of taking out his overpriced Lunchable, peeling back it's plastic lid & opening the little napkin and mini mustard.  Not that he eats mustard, but it was still fun to open and squirt at the kid sitting next to him.

My oldest son John is 7 and yesterday he was the child I accompanied to the zoo.  He rose at 5:09 a.m. not wanting to be late for the scheduled field trip departure time... of 8:30.    Needless to say, he had lots of time to get ready.  And, so did I.  Over my coffee, I reflected on field trips past... and despite the hot cup in my hands, a shiver went down my spine.

John has autism and has been in some form of school setting since two days after his third birthday.  So we have quite a few field trips under our belts.  In the early days, field trips were - in a word - disastrous.   My kid, like most kids with autism, loves order, routine and sameness.  Field trips are the opposite of all that.  They take everything that is supposed to be in one place, and moves it to someplace else.   Everything that spelled "fun" to a typical 4 yr old, spelled "miserable" to mine.  He was forever anguished in a place that was too loud, smelled funny, had too many kids, was too hot....  He was never quiet when he was supposed to be, never followed the rules, always ran the other way.  He would stare at the sign explaining the thing, and never look at the thing itself.  I have a clear memory of sitting on the curb outside of Happy Joes sobbing... as my son sat on the sidewalk lining up decorative landscaping rocks next to me.   Meanwhile, all the other kids sat inside with their parents happily eating pizza and ice cream.  I felt so alone... so distant from those perfect families inside.  So distant from this kid on the sidewalk next to me.

A lot has changed since those days weepy days on the sidewalk.  John has grown and changed and evolved so much .  So have I.  He still hates restaurants and he still would rather not have his routine interrupted, but a field trip is actually now, finally, something to be enjoyed.  Although I had to laugh because yesterday John read every sign at the zoo ...  EVERY SINGLE SIGN.  This morning he couldn't tell you how many Leopards were actually in the cage because he didn't look at them.  But he can tell you their native country,  primary diet and life expectancy.  God I love him.

Somewhere near the monkey house yesterday, I saw a boy with severe autism having a meltdown.  (I didn't actually have his medical chart in front of me, but I knew he had autism because when you've lived it, you know.)  He was covering his ears and screaming and bawling.   He was with a school group & was flanked by two aides trying to talk him off the ledge.  He was, well, losing it.  And it took everything in my power to keep from running over to him, wrapping my arms around him and giving him some nice soothing deep compression, rocking him rhythmically and telling him it was OK.  It was OK to hate the zoo.  Not everyone has to love everything.

But I didn't do any of that.  I let a few tears fall behind my sunglasses and I moved on to the giraffes.  But I did take a moment to acknowledge how far we'd come and how appreciative I was that for now... for this day.... a field trip was just a field trip.  And I was just a mom... with a son .... who got a Lunchable.