I took a personal day to team up with Lynnette as a chaperone team for Madison’s school’s field trip to the Polynesian Cultural Center. I generally don’t like to miss work. Today is the first day of school I have missed since August. I stayed late to grade on Tuesday and I led a tour during the Open House on Wednesday. I hadn’t seen Madison awake for more than three or four hours over the course of those two days. That made me feel slightly less guilty about taking leave today. On Wednesday night, Madison perfectly enunciated the location of our field trip and I was very impressed. That’s a hefty polysyllabic title. Anyway, here are some of the pictures from the trip. I learned a lot of cool stuff. Only I can’t remember any of it at this moment.
When it's time to start the day, someone at the school rings a bell and then the kids go nuts. There's a bunch of screaming and a bunch of running, and then somehow out of all that chaos, the three classes line up. Madison is a line leader this week. If you can make her out, she's grasping Honey near the front of her line. She had a little argument with the girl ahead of her. Eventually, Madison got to the front of the line, said something I couldn't hear and got a loud response from her class in the form of shouts that I couldn't make out. I don't know how adults humans can teach children this young. It's amazing.
One of the reasons I couldn't deal with the pre-school age is something I never knew about until this morning: the coordinated bathroom process. I suppose it's the most logical way to do it, but Madison's teacher essentially sent the kids in her class to the bathroom in groups of four. Then we waited for all of them to get back in line. The pace was brutal. I have one child and I cannot fathom having to do this every single day. Oh, by the way, there's Mad as she's taken her rightful place as line leader. She takes pride in her jobs, and she's always been this way. While her "help" with my housekeeping projects is generally counter-productive, she still enjoys being a part of the process. At least she's not a bossy line leader. I think she saves that for us.
The bus ride out to Laie seemed to last forever. I watched all the usual landmarks - Wahiawa, Haleiwa, Waimea, etc. - slowly pass by over the course of a bumpy ride. Luckily, Madison sat next to me on the way out. She was so excited to get to the PCC, she waved at just about everything as we passed by, including the windmills. I am not used to the sound of such a large group of children. I actually preferred the sound of the wind cutting through the windows to the shouts of the kids on the bus. Every once in a while, Madison would squeeze my arm and tell me that she loves me. That was probably because she couldn't believe I was actually there since I've been at work so late this week. I don't blame her, and I am so grateful that she doesn't hold it against me.
We visited Samoa first. We were treated to fire-making, coconut-husking and coconut cracking, and also some information about the gender roles in Samoan culture. He was the best performer today. Most of his jokes were obvious for the kids to get, and a few of them were really clever and appreciated by the adults. I wish I was as smooth on Wednesday night during Open House. I'm not a talker.
After Samoa, we took a canoe ride. This is likely the same river in which they filmed Super Croc, a B-Movie I saw parts of on the Sci-Fi network a few years back. It really should have been an F-Movie, but I don't make the rules. Anyway, Madison was terrified of getting into the canoe. As we approached the dock, she told me she was tired, then sad, then hungry. I picked her up and placed her in the canoe and she sat in the middle of the plank which served as a seat. After a few minutes, I suppose Madison was convinced that we weren't going to capsize. She leaned against my outer leg and peered into the murky water. "What's that?" she said. "A fish, I think," I said. "No, that, dad," Madison said. "That's a pipe, Mad," "Oh," she said. There were enough along our route that she felt the need to point them out as we sailed along. She's going to end up thinking that the islands of Polynesia are known for both their interesting performance arts and an abundance of pipes in their bodies of water.
The one thing I know about Tahiti was the one thing they focused on during this portion of the tour. A young man went on about various drums and performed different kinds of drum work. Then he called up his partner to instruct the kids in Tahitian Dance. Our guide also invited all of the female chaperones up to the stage, but only Madison's teacher obliged. Madison did not thoroughly participate in the dance because she had Honey to look after. Honey made several appearances today, but mostly she hung out in the shade of my backpack.
Our final stop on our tour of Polynesia was Tonga. We learned some statistical facts about the island kingdom in addition to a dance. Since I can't dance, I took pictures instead...
... of people who can and did dance. Lynnette is a marvelous clapper, a decent mover, and a pretty weak chee-huuuuer. Nobody's perfect.
Madison didn't eat any of her breakfast - even though we got it from McDonald's. As a result, she was going on about being hungry from before Tahiti. Both Lynnette and I told Madison that the exact reason she was so famished was her decision to skip breakfast. We followed that up with something along the lines of "That's why you should eat when we tell you to." But I'm pretty sure Madison didn't care by the time lunch rolled around. She destroyed her spam musubi. Literally. She took it apart to eat the spam, then nearly covered herself with peanut butter as she dipped apples in it. Roughly 39% of the contents of Lynnette's purse are items that can be used for cleaning. She's a hot mom, yes, but also practical.
I took this picture without either of my girls knowing it. I just thought it was the kind of moment that accurately reflected my family. Madison has her name tag in her mouth and is likely in Puppy Mode. Lynnette wants to pry the tag from her mouth - not because Puppy Mode is inappropriate in public - but because the tag is dirty. I wasn't able to capture the chaos surrounding the two. There were kids running all over the place. That boy running in front of Mad and Lynnette was purposely stomping on the metal because it made huge noise. He wasn't alone. But amidst this madness, this what I see when I look at my family: the girl I love and the woman I fell in love with.
Mad and Lynnette knocked out on the way back to Mililani. One of them continued her nap for a good two-and-a-half hours once we got back home. Want to guess which one? I'll give you a hint: the one who stayed up played a Disney Princesses game with me in the living room while the other slept.
