So the first emails arrive and are guiltily ignored. Subject lines like "Parents needed for Field Trip to Dockyard" always elicit a mix of irritation ("Don't they know we have to go to work!?") and guilt ("My son spends all day in that nursery and this is a chance for him to see the world! What's more important than that!?"). The second email arrives. Then a direct message to you... will YOU, Charlie's Daddy, take time off for this. If you don't, Charlie will be the only one who can't go. Well, the world squeezes itself into perspective and you take the morning off and forget your Outlook and its unhappy tasks lists and go spend the morning with your son and his gang in Dockyard. You see what you and he would have missed. The giggles and glee of being on a ferry and seeing the harbour and its boats. The grumpy refusal to go in the sprinkler fountain with the other kids unless you, Daddy, also go and get soaked with recycled salt water. The gratitude you feel when it starts to rain actual new fresh water on you from passing clouds. The routine nature of their lunch box consumption as these tiny humans all sit and eat the meals their parents hastily prepared in bleary eyed morning light. The happy, sloppy, sticky result of buying six kids ice cream with sprinkles. The cranky, past-naptime return journey and then leaving your little boy at the nursery and strangely wishing the field trip were longer so you could hang with your buddy that little bit longer.
Miss Julia, Dimacio, and Charlie.
Dimacio, Charlie, Cameron, a new kid, and Mark.
Ice cream and sprinkes. Yum!
Charlie's other Mom, Ms Tina, and Ms Tina's mummy.
Charlie napping at school - an activity he is patently incapable of at home.
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