Off to the zoo.

This is a "preaching to the choir" kind of blog. Before I begin the sermon-like part, I want to address you, the choir. There is bias here; an overwhelming love for Turner affects how you interpret all the stories collected in this blog. As a reader, it is most likely that you find Turner to be an interesting kid who says insightful things at the appropriate time. (In rhetorical terms, we might consider Turner adept at kairos, that is, capturing the moment.) Through this blog, my aim is to capture not just the innocence of Turner's life and adventures, but also his personality. How he tells stories and the kinds of stories he tells says a lot about the kind of kid Turner is. Today, I chaperoned a field trip to the zoo with all four Cragin kindergarten classes. From 8 AM to 2:07 PM, I watched him interact with the other children in his class. And, perhaps more importantly, I got to know a bit better the kids who appear in his stories about school, which taught me oh so much about our little man. So, before I begin a sermon singing Turner's praises, I ask you to remember, we are biased. The other children in his school have folks who look at them in all the same ways that we look at Turner: with affection, pride, gratefulness, and love. Yet, there are those parents who ditch their kid's zoo field trip.

Four teachers, two school volunteers, and a host of parents showed up today to accompany nearly 75 kindergartens to the Tucson Zoo. Ms. Cipolla boasted the most parent volunteers (9 of us, I think). Each parent was responsible for his/her own child and one other child. Our buddy was Isaiah with an "s." In Ms. Smith's class, the one Margot is in, four parent volunteers showed up at school to chaperone the field trip. Somehow, only two of the four made it to the zoo. Apparently, one kid's parents ditched us. I felt so horrible for this kid, though I never knew who it was. The teachers and other parents were buzzing about it all day, and I couldn't help but think about the kid's disappointment. Having your parent on a field trip is, apparently, a source of pride and a factor in who is popular at school.

So, Turner and I have Isaiah as our single buddy. The volunteers in Ms. Smith's class had four or five kids to keep track of. I spoke with one grandmother and she was exhausted. She thought the field trip ended at 11. When we started walking to the park for two hours of lunch and playtime, she turned to Ms. Smith and said, "Where are we going now?" with such a tone that I snickered. It did kind of feel like a long day. On Thursday, I spoke with Ms. Cipolla and she said I would be in charge of a small group. I jokingly said, "Well make sure to give me the good ones." Turner gets picked on at school sometimes by two girl bullies and one boy bully. It isn't cause for concern; these are just "those" kids at school that make trouble. So I really wasn't too half-hearted in my request to Ms. Cipolla. Isaiah proved to be a great kid, though he is high energy and not the greatest listener. We lost him only twice, and Ms. Cipolla was really proud of us. Apparently, though he tells great stories and had an incredibly creative imagination, he is a real challenge in the classroom because he doesn't listen and can't focus. At the end of the day, for example, Turner said to him, "Great job Isaiah. You stayed on green all day." All the children stayed on green (I'm fairly certain it was because we didn't bring the discipline chart with us).

I asked, "Oh do you get yellow cards sometimes?" Isaiah laughed.

"All the time," he said.

"Oh. What happens at home if you get a yellow card?"

"Nothing."

"Do you get a red card ever?"

Turner chimes in with his own laugh. "Oh yeah he does."

Isaiah says, "Yeah and then I have to sit in my room when I get home."

"Yeah. Turner loses privileges when he gets a red card too."

After Ms. Cipolla set us free at the zoo entrance, the boys want to see the lions. While Turner and I chat over the rail, Isaiah inches away from us. Walking, talking, and getting farther away. I tell Turner we have to stay together with Isaiah so we need to move along, and we do. I turn the corner, and Isaiah is not there. I grab Turner's hand and we run down the fence of the lion cage. I'm looking for a kid in a black shirt I met about four minutes ago. We find him, sitting on the ground at the base of a rock kind of hidden. He stands up and within a moment Ms. Cipolla is beside us. She leans down to him and says, "Isaiah, you are to listen to Turner's mom. Stay with her. Do not run off. Pay attention to whether or not you are with her. If you run away, she will call me and you will sit with me all day. You will miss out on all the fun. You must listen." I was petrified. Scary Ms. Cipolla is quite convincing. Isaiah nods, and he and Turner return to the lion cage. Ms. Cipolla says to me in a serious tone, "And I mean that. You just call me because he needs, um, well a lot of attention." And, this is true. As long as I was talking to Isaiah I figured I couldn't lose him, so this was my strategy. This gave him enough attention, I think, so that he didn't run away as much. I mean, he totally ran away more than he stayed with us between exhibits, but as long as I was talking to him while we looked at animals he stayed by my side. After we lost him the second time--this one much more serious and involving a panicked Amanda screaming "ISAIAH" at an intersection of three paths--I make the little one hold my hand for five minutes. He hates every moment, though he doesn't complain much. With subtlety he would try to worm his hand out of mine, but he wasn't successful. I figured that my heart should, at the very least, return to its normal rhythm before I let go of this kid's hand again.

As we're leaving the zoo, Isaiah and Turner grab my hands. Isaiah says, "Turner, I like your mom. She's pretty alright." Turner doesn't respond to him, but he looks up at me and smiles big. On the way to the playground equipment at the park Turner turns to me and says, "Mom, I don't want to play with Angel anymore." Angel is one of the bullies though Turner wants desperately to be his friend because he only allows two boys to play Mario Game with him. The chosen two change to reflect Angel's whim, but Turner takes it deeply personal. I ask Turner, "Why do you say that?" Very loud and with passion he says, "Because he said he was going to kick my ass." Everyone stops walking. Four or five parents hear it. Ms. Cipolla. All the children. I drop Isaiah's hand, and Turner and I fall out of line and talk.

"I was just telling you what he said."

"I know, but you must ask permission to use adult words."

"I know, you asked me to tell you what he said and I did." He apologizes. Then he goes to Ms. Cipolla and apologizes to her too. We fall back in line.

Ms. Cipolla asks Turner, "Now who used that kind of language with you?"

Turner replies, "Angel."

Ms. Cipolla, who has kept such composure all day amidst some very disturbing behavior, throws her hands into the air and says, "That's it!" She looks forward and starts walking a bit faster. "Angel is not coming on the next field trip. He is not." She looks at me, "There have been problems all day."

"Oh," I say, trying to sound apologetic. How does she do this five days a week?! Five girls in a class of twenty. Ms. Cipolla has her hands full with more than a few rambunctious boys. "Was it behavior issues that kept the other two kids from the field trip today?" Two girls, the bullies, were left at school to do homework all day.

"Yes. And there was a third. I talked to his parents this week about his behavior and that he wouldn't be allowed on the field trip. I thought it was a great conversation. And then the dad stood up and said, well we'll be taking him on a trip this weekend since you won't let him go on the field trip. Okay, well reward him for that bad behavior then."

"Did you say that to them?" I'm kind of joking.

"Oh yeah I did." Good for you Ms. Cipolla.

We have lunch together. Isaiah has a cool Spiderman lunchbox filled with a lunchable, which is something that has changed dramatically since I was a kid. His pizza lunchable came with chocolate chip cookies and a fruit punch drink (a mini water bottle and the powder to pour in). It was high tech and totally loaded with corn syrup and sugar. I mean, you know I checked out the ingredients list. One or both--corn syrup and sugar--were in the first five ingredients of every aspect of the lunchable, even the "pepperoni." Turner requests lunchables all the time, but they are way over-priced and so processed. I remember my mom giving me these justifications when I was a kid, so I'm sure they sound equally lame to Turner now. He and I brought our lunches from home, and we share our carrots with Isaiah. Turner tells him that carrots support great night vision, so Isaiah wants to eat them all up. Food trivia is a great rhetorical strategy to get kids, who secretly want to be superheroes, to eat their vegetables. It works for us at least.

After lunch, Turner and Isaiah rush off in opposite directions to play on the playground. There are about 75 students from Cragin, plus another bus load of kids from another school. It is impossible to keep eyes on the boys at the same time. For nearly an hour I am a mess walking around trying hard to prevent a child theft. Finally, I suggest we play a game together. Mario perhaps. Isaiah says, "That's Angel's game. We can't play that. He wouldn't like that."

"Okay. So what would you suggest we could play?"

"Power Rangers."

Turner jumps up and down and the boys play Power Rangers with two other boys from their class (Diago and Jason). Angel power subverted. He spent much of the playground time sitting in time out anyway. Something about pushing. Diago's dad Chuy, who was Angel's buddy for the day, filled me in on several phone calls to Ms. Cipolla. Apparently, more than once, the child took off running and wouldn't stop. Chuy chased him, Diago under his arm. There was also a spitting incident and something about attempting to climb into an exhibit. Diago's dad is amazing and at every single field trip.

A few other things I learned today.

1. The little girl who scratched Turner's face last week has a mom who takes phone calls in the middle of Ms. Cipolla's circle time. She also spent her time at the park sitting outside shouting distance from the rest of us, and when it was time to leave she didn't know where her daughter or her buddy were. We found them at a water fountain. One of the other mothers said to her, "Who was suppose to be watching your kid? Wasn't it you?" Since the lost girl's mother was semi-blaming the teachers for being irresponsible. I walked away before things got ugly.

2. Turner has little problem listening. I mean, we complain a lot about him not listening. But really folks, I think we have nothing to fear. At the end of the day I shared my admiration with Ms. Cipolla for keeping all these boys focused enough in class to learn. "I know Turner can be high energy sometimes," I said, "but Isaiah definitely has more."

Ms. Cipolla looks at me with seriousness. "Turner is not high energy. He is great in school. Isaiah is all over the place, but Turner is so helpful at keeping others on task."

Oh, I know this. And I got to see this a bit today. For an hour we sat in the classroom before the field trip and went through the morning rituals. Calendar, weather, counting lunches, writing number sentences that reflect attendance, and so much more. Turner sat pretty quiet. The other kids had to be reminded several times how to sit, where to sit, to be quiet, to do their job, and so on. Ms. Cipolla didn't once say Turner's name. At one point, he leaned to Chol and said "You better stop that or you'll have to turn your card." At the end of the day, circle time, Ms. Cipolla asked everyone to explain their favorite part of the field trip. Turner said, "My favorite part was the jaguars and watching them lounge around and one put all four paws over the branch, balancing to sleep. It was so cute. And playing in my imagination the rest of the day that I was a jaguar."

3. Parents on field trips should not consider themselves the "boss" of their kid. When we drop our little ones off at school, we entrust them to teachers and we must respect their rules. On the last field trip that I attended, a mom attended that spent much of the time screaming at her son. He was ill-behaved, but I was so glad to be away from that woman and her constant need to threaten and never ever make good on it. Her son steps on the back of Turner's shoes regularly. On this field trip, Ms. Cipolla instructed parents to not buy ANYTHING for any of the children. Not even a drink since this would be unfair to the other kids who didn't get something extra at the zoo. Easy enough rule. The screamy mom, however, bought her son and their buddy a toy from the gift shop and then paraded it about a little. When we returned to school and the mom was gone, Ms. Cipolla instructed the boys to place the toys in their book bag out of sight. The step-on-the-shoes kid gave her some lip about it being from his mom and SHE said he could have it. Ms. Cipolla said very calmly, "I am your teacher. I am not your mom. As your teacher I instruct you to put that in your bag right now or it will go into my desk."

4. Parent drama can be avoided if you stand alone. One poor kid (Izaiah with a "z") was chaperoned by two parents who can't speak to one another. The mom regularly volunteers at the school. The dad was the one entitled to this field trip given a prior agreement. The mom, then, was not there on behalf of her son, but on behalf of the school. This meant she was not suppose to be near her son while her ex was. This resulted in some awkward exchanges as one parent tried to facilitate lunch and the other did bathroom duty and so on. Unfortunately, I heard all this drama while I was eating lunch with Turner and the other children. Yes, we all were subjected to stories about the baby daddy. After I fled the scene, I was careful to not interact with anyone for too long except Diago's dad, who is a bartender at the restaurant across the street from our house. He and Andy do playground time together with the boys and we find them to be the not-airing-dirty-laundry type.

5. Without a doubt, Turner is the best kid in his school. He was patient with me all day when I asked him to rush through some of our favorite exhibits--tortoise, sea otters, rhino, and giraffes--because Isaiah took off running without us. During lunch, he was careful to share, and he provided some helpful distraction from Ms. Drama by telling some great stories about jaguars. When one boy tried to coax Turner to the duck pond, which was outside the boundary Ms. Cipolla established for our park play, Turner was the first to turn back and get an adult. Tattle-telling, perhaps, but at least he wasn't the kid dragging another little boy away as Ms. Cipolla darted over the hill after them. Notable, for sure, is that he was the only kid to hug Ms. Cipolla at the end of the day and thank her for a wonderful field trip. Then he came and hugged me and thanked me for going. Without prompting, of course.