Tough Guy

My kids come on most of my field trips with my classes. My kids are still young and cute, so the students like it. My kids adore college students, so they love to be along. Besides, my trips usually have something to do with playing with bugs or mud or critters of one kind or another.

It used to always be that Z would develop a crush on one of the girls. For the last year, though, it's been B that is smitten. B wants to marry one of my students - she is a little uneasy about his unbridled affection (in a good way, though). The other students think it is hilarious. The sad day will come at some point when my boys really notice the bikini clad students (on my beach trip) and the students find it less cute. For now, we think it is grand.

My kids also participate in most of the class activities. This means that if it is wet and cold, they also get wet and cold. This has had one bonus, the college kids don't complain as much as they used to.

For example, last year I taught marine biology. Our field trip got us to the beach on a rainy spring day. The temperature hovered around forty, it was howling with wind, and the rain was spitting sporadically... not such a nice day.

We bundled up and trotted into the mud to drag nets and dig for worms and other stuff. Z had a full set of raingear and little boots. B had a raincoat, sweats on, and his little boots (they don't make toddler foul weather gear - what gives?). T was bundled up and in a backpack on me over my chest waders.

We all tromped out of the vans to the mudflats, got out the nets, buckets, and sampling gear. It was just about then that Beck got stuck in the mud and sat down in about 4 inches of cold seawater. When I helped him stand... it ran down his legs into his boots. The kid was wet. It was cold and windy. He paused and looked at me - "do I cry here?". I said "whoops, don't sit here... that's not a good idea". He bucked up.

He had a blast catching crabs, fish, worms, hermits, and jellies. And, everytime a college kid looked like they were about to bitch - they looked at B and changed their mind.