The Future Of Us

Parent involvement

"Come on, mom we're gonna be late!" Ally pulls me towards the door. I'm a chaperone for her school field trip to an aquarium today. Clearly, when I signed up for it 2 months ago, I didn't think of how much walking there would be.

"Go out to the car, I'll be there in a minute." I hand her my keys and take a quick look through my bag making sure I have extra snacks for myself.

Brad hands me another smaller bag as I'm about to leave "There's some pickles in there for your crazy cravings." He kisses me quickly "Go have fun."

I walk out to the car where Ally is waiting for me very impatiently. She already has the music playing and looks like she's ready to drive off herself.

"Let's go." I look over to see her smiling from ear to ear as I pull out of the driveway. She talks the whole way about how she's excited for all the extra things that she can do while we're there, and before we know it we're pulling into the school parking lot.

Ally runs up to her friends once we get into the classroom, and I stand to the side with the other parents looking at the list of kids in my group and exchanging phone numbers with the teacher incase of an emergency. Luckily for me, Courteney is all a chaperone so I have someone I know with.

"Okay, Mrs. Pitt's group," The teacher calls out the kids "Ally, Hailey, Georgia and Mari." The girls come over to me right away, and stand next to me talking to the kids in Courteney's group with Coco.

We're told that the bus is waiting for us, so we all walk out and try to get seats close to our groups. Court and I sit together and have the girls around us. It's about a 90 minute drive, and the kids are all hyped up, so it should be fun.

"How are you feeling?" Court asks me as we start to leave.

"I've been pretty good so far this time. Still have morning sickness, but I'm used to that." I look over at her "How have you guys been? Coco looked excited."

"She's been talking about it for weeks." Court laughs "We've been good, it's been nice that David and I haven't had to film in a while so we can spend more time with Coco."

We spend the rest of the way there talking about random things. I also get to know a few other chaperones, just so I know who they are, and we all get along really well. The kids have all calmed down a little, and most are playing games or talking quietly to each other. Ally and Coco of course are next to each other, and are trying to get Court and I to buy them things before we're even there. I tell them that I'll get both of them something if they convince their groups to be good the whole time, but with a bunch of 11 year old girls that might not happen.

The teacher, Mrs. Miller, stands up in the front of the bus getting everyone's attention "We're going to get there in about 5 minutes. I'd like every group to meet in the front of the building and make sure that you have everyone before moving on." I turn around as she's talking to find where the girls in my group are, and make sure again that I remember their names.

"Ally, wait here. We're going to be with Court and Coco most of the day." I stop the girls from wondering around until I know Court has her group together. Once we're ready, we walk into the aquarium and go straight to the dolphin show upon request. The girls want to sit in the splash zone, so we make sure we can see them and sit a few rows back where we won't be getting wet.

The show starts and trainers swim out with the dolphins and a bunch of toys for them to play with. Court and I take pictures of the girls so that they can see their reactions later. They're all so excited about seeing all the cool tricks that the dolphins can do.

Ally and Coco get up to help out, basically forcing Court and I to get up and stand closer. We walk up to the edge with the rest of the girls and watch as Ally and Coco help the trainers by throwing food for the dolphins for them to do tricks. We, of course, get splashed and end up soaked, but laugh it off when we see the girls reactions. They start throwing the food towards us so that we will get splashed more, and keep laughing at us because they think it's hysterical. I think it's funny until all the commotion causes Kaiden to use my bladder as a toy and kick me non stop.