One of the things this whole "not working very much" thing has afforded me is the chance to go on field trips. Official field trips. With my son's class. This year we did an overnight camping trip to Jerome, a two night camping trip to Kartchner Caverns, and a trip to the San Francisco Peaks. Today we went to Red Rock Crossing in Sedona. It was beautiful. There's only two days left of school and the kids have been done (in their minds) for at least a week, so it was the perfect day for a field trip. The picture above was the view from behind where we set down our towels. The creek was in front of us. There was no sand, just red rocks, huge ones, that we sat on. The kids played for hours, caught tadpoles and chased each other in and out of the water (which, for the record, was FREEZING). Here are two teeny frogs, with their tails still on a bit.
I wanted to take them home. We always tell the kids they need to leave the wild things where they found them, you know, take only pictures, leave only footprints. But in my head, I always think, I WANT them. I sound, often, like a seven year old in my head. I WANT those frogs and I want to keep them in a baggie until we get home and then I want to put them in a fish bowl and keep them FOREVER. But I don't. Jay caught this big crawdad. He is not the kind to just pick these things up but he did and brought it to show me. 
(When I saw my skinny white son running around I became obsessed with taking him home and making him eat a big bowl of pudding or a huge plate of chicken nuggets or even just giving him a big sack of candy....the boy is THIN.) There was also a speckled fat toad, a zillion tiny fish, more crawdads, and tadpoles everywhere. There were no injuries, very few tears and several fourth grade infatuations in the making. I have heard that the change from fourth to fifth grade is big. It's when some of them start noticing the "other" sex. It seems like, up until now, they've all been one big microcosm, similar interests, dispositions, and mannerisms. Now, and I can see it in them, some are getting ready to morph into being the nerds or the jocks or the freaks. I remember all those cliques, like small villages, and now my son and his friends will start that long branching off into what they will become. They don't have any idea where they are headed. But they are anxious to get there. Everything about them is getting bigger; their emotions, their bodies, the importance of who says what to who, and why. The changing of grades is as crucial as birthdays. As Jay keeps saying to me, "in two days, I'm a fifth grader".
Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the
universe, a moment that will never be again. And what
do we teach our children? We teach them that two and
two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France.
When will we also teach them what they are?
We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are?
You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that
have passed, there has never been another child like you.
Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move.
You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven.
You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel.
And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is,
like you, a marvel?
You must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy
of its children.
--Pablo Casals (1876-1973)
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