Trippin' and Star Wars

We went on our field trip today.

It was a walking field trip. Jennifer* decided that her Hello Kitty rain boots would be suitable footwear for the walk.

And then she complained about her feet bothering her.

What the hell is it with kids and shoes that will make your feet sweat... and then they don't wear socks?

I do NOT understand it.

ICKKKKKK!

Even when I was a kid I didn't wear shoes without socks. Too uncomfortable for me.

We went to the nickel arcade. Each child was given two dollars in nickels. Most of them brought money with them, too. They all had a great time choosing which cheesy prizes they'd take home with the tickets and assorted other stuff they got out of the machines.

It was really funny at first. We have a small girl who is pretty dependent on the adults around her. Lisa* came to me with her little bag of nickels and said, "Um, we were supposed to be getting two dollars??"

It was interesting explaining to her that the bag of nickels they'd handed to her was two dollars. She thought she was going to get money to take home, I think.

I told her she could turn them in for dollar bills, but that she wouldn't be able to play any of the arcade games if she did. She was actually a little pissed off about it.

I followed her a couple times and grabbed her bag of nickels, she had just left it on the machine and wandered off.

The third time she did it, I had moved on and was keeping an eye on some other kids (we had a bunch with us). She came to me and wanted to know where her nickels were. I shrugged. "I have no idea, Lisa, where did you leave them?"

She'd left them on the motorcycle and they were gone.
She was pissed. She asked me to give her some more money, and I explained that I didn't have any.

That didn't make her terribly happy either. :)

She was even more pissed when she made the choice to spend most of the five bucks she brought with her on more nickels, spent 90% of her time riding the electric motorcycle again which does not give out tickets to exchange for prizes later and then didn't have enough for a soda and popcorn. She was twenty five cents short and wanted to argue with the person behind the counter.

That girl was sweet, trying to show her other things she could buy with her two dollars, but Lisa really wanted the soda/popcorn combo.

It didn't happen.

Then, she chose to spend the rest of her money on nickels and try getting a stuffed animal from the claw game. Which of course never works.

So she ran out of money, had none for refreshments, and after she learned we would not be leaving immediately now that she was finished, she sat at a table with her arms folded and her lower lip sticking about about a mile.

To her credit, though, she was all sunshiny when we got back, and played nicely with all the other small girls and didn't seem affected by the utter disaster of no popcorn and no prizes.

Then, we got back to our location, and after snack was over, we went outside to play.

Three of the small boys wanted to join with some of the bigger ones in a rousing game of Star Wars. All three of them wanted to be young Luke Skywalker. And when Loren* chose John* for the role, the other two were madder than hell.

Jordan* collapsed on the playground in a pile of tears, and Bob* yelled in Loren's face and stormed off, saying he hated them all and would never play with them again.

Of course I find it amusing and cute, but to them it really is a big deal. So I don't laugh at them or tell them that they're being silly over nothing, because to them, it is SOMETHING.

Jordan will be with me in the fall, and when I went to talk with him after the Skywalker incident, he said, "I hate everything here!!"

"I'm sorry this one didn't go your way, Buddy. Is there something you hate here that I can fix for you?"

"No. I just hate that." he said, seriously. "I really wanted to be Luke Skywalker. And it's not fair that someone else gets to!"

I told him that I hope next time it would work out for him. Then Mikey* came over and asked him to play, and they ran off together, all happy.

Kids.