Pigs and Pancakes and Parties, oh my!

Yesterday, I had the insanity privilege of being a chaperone on Trey’s school field trip.  The second grade traveled to the Rosewood Center for Family Arts to see the national touring performance of “If You Give a Pig a Party”, a play adapted from the Laura Joffe Numeroff book of the same name.  Being the awesome volunteer that I am, I was one of the select few whose names were chosen to accompany the students ON THE BUS!!  I haven’t had the thrill of riding a school bus with a bunch of over-excited, noisy children since I was required under contract to be in charge of said children, so this experience brought back all kinds of memories.

The theater is located in Matt’s and my old stomping grounds – at the intersection of Northwest Highway and Skillman Street.  Just being there made me wax nostalgic on dates at Caruso’s (home of the singing waiters…and VERY cozy, private booths), dollar movies at Medallion Theater, take-out burgers at Jake’s.  The area has recently undergone a major transformation and much-needed revitalization project: Caruso’s is now a Pier One, Medallion Theater is now a Kohl’s, and Jake’s is now a parking lot.  But the biggest surprise to me turned out to be the Rosewood Center itself – a beautiful, state-of-the-art theater which used to be a Don Carter’s bowling alley.

We were there with 3 other schools, so the theater was full.  The performance itself was fantastic!  I wasn’t sure how they’d adapt a 5-minute read-aloud book to a 70-minute stage play and still keep the audience entertained, but the writers did and the kids were.  Even our second-graders got into it, cheering during a game of hide-and-seek, and howling wildly at the antics of the animals.  The writers even poked a little fun at themselves, playing off of the other books in the series, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, If You Give a Pig a Pancake, and If You Give a Moose a Muffin.  In fact, the play was so enjoyable that I am planning to take Crisana to see it next week before the show closes.

Following the performance, we headed back to McKinney to Finch Park – which I didn’t even know existed!  I was so impressed with this park!  For one thing, it’s huge!  There are several different picnic areas with covered pavilions of different sizes.  The playground was full, so we headed over to a pavilion area to eat, where there was a large open area for the children to run around in.  I had brought three different picnic blankets, so most of Trey’s class ended up there to eat since the tables were all full.  After scarfing down their lunches, these kids were ready to play!  We let them scamper around the open area for awhile before heading over to the playground.  There were at least two other schools already on the playground in addition to other families and parkgoers so it was very crowded and made for nervous chaperones for about 15 minutes.  But then one of the schools left and our children became much easier to keep track of.  We let them play for nearly an hour before heading back to school, tired and hot, but having had a fun time.

It was a great field trip, and only reinforced my decision to not return to work full-time next year.  The price of admission to the program: $7.  Having a day to build memories with my son and his friends – and being the one adult chaperone everyone wanted to sit next to on the bus – priceless.  Yes, my friend, there definitely are some things money can’t buy.