My face is the color of a clown nose as I stand before a first-grade teacher who towers me with her black high heels. A seemingly odd choice for a day of field trip pandemonium to the local dump. I second-guess my flats, thinking perhaps I am being too cautious.
Nope. No I’m not. It’s trash. Loads of it. What is she thinking?

These mornings when I have to forgo the usual running shorts I don’t run in and mismatched ankle slippers I hide beneath the steering wheel of the carpool line, I perform my own circus act. I juggle Cheetos and freezer packs and vitamins and disciplines over wrestling matches and the long lost partner of more than one pair of Converse tennis shoes. 
So I’m feeling quite proud as I walk into the classroom with coffee and a go-get-’em attitude, on time.

A week earlier I had texted my mother-in-law.
“Hey, any chance you’re free next Wednesday to watch the little one?”
I give her the drop-off, pick-up, nap, and lunch rundown. The next day I’m texting again.
“Oh Renee. I have too many schedules. The field trip is Thursday. Are you free then?” 
Whew, that was close. How embarrassing it would have been to show up the wrong day.

With pride I’m reflecting, standing among the masses of dirty fingernails and all that is elementary. Not only am I a scarved goddess, I’ve gotten everything in it’s place. All the kids, all the brown bags with our names written in Sharpie, myself, and with minutes to spare. I can hear applause if I listen closely. 

Scanning the room I wonder who the lucky ones will be. I mean, when this day is over I will have made my son the cool kid. It’s a known fact through the third grade classes that I am a ringmaster when it comes to these kinds of things. Oh yes. I simply crack the whip of Simon Says, let them pick a team name for the day, and they become but sleepy lions in my hand.
Lions, nonetheless who ultimately will never be tamed on the bus ride back. Ah well, I do what I can. 

He comes up to me head first, tears right on the edge. I know this face, the one burrowed in my stomach. Sometimes it’s over a bad dream, other times it’s that someone we love has moved on to a better place. And sometimes it’s when he’s seen the calendar says the field trip is next Thursday.

You know those movies with the endings that play back all the clues you’ve been seeing yet missing for two hours to reveal a grand finale and final piece of the puzzle?
The black high heels, the absence of other chaperones, the slow cadence of her steps as she pushes her way through the incessant tellings of first grade innocence. Everything is rushing at me in a torrent and I can feel my complexion getting hotter. The scarf is much too much now.

“It’s not field trip day, is it?”

And in her mind she was probably saying, “What is she thinking?”