Out of the mouth

I experienced this "out of the mouth of babes" yesterday. Actually, it was out of the mouth of a four and a half year old.

It was my first experience of going on a preschool field trip. My husband has taken Sam before, so this was new territory for me. Do I follow the other experienced parents around? Do I venture out and act like I know what I'm doing when in fact I haven't the slightest clue?

We made it inside the building without a hitch. This was going to be one exciting field trip to the road commission to look at the snow plows. Of course, the kids thought this great fun, especially the boys. All six of them.

Inside, we sit in this room and watch a video that in a nut shell said, "get out of the way of snow plows or else you'll get hit and die". The man who was taking us on this tour then started asking questions about the video to make sure the kids understood it.

So the kids start getting bored and start rasing their hands to just say anything that comes out of their mouth. Enter my son. Thinking he was the "quiet type" in settings that he's not familiar with, I was surprised that he was going to say something. And scared what was going to come out of his mouth.

"My Mama?? Well...she ummm...was driving to see a friend? (everything comes out sounding like a question at the end when he's talking). And she was driving along? And um....she didn't see this car? And she hit this amublance? And she smashed our old truck." Ummm...did he just say what I thought he said? Gasping tour guy, gasping parents and that tense little chuckle around the room that people do when they don't know what to say or do.

At that point, face was flaming. The tour guy said, "she hit an ambulance? That's not good.". Wanted to go put myself in front of one of those snow plows just to end the misery. Of course, I couldn't redeem myself and tell the actual story, so I sat there realizing that everyone thought I hit an ambulance and just had to shrug my shoulders and say, "oh well". So goes life.

After the video, we took a tour of the building and one of the dad's came up to me and said, "So you hit an amublance?" Guess he was listening. I then got to set the story straight with at least one parent.

I took Sam aside later and said, "It was not an amublance I hit, it was another truck". I wanted him to make sure he got his story straight in case he decided to tell someone else about his mom's accident (that happened last April).

I don't think any parents are going to want me escorting their kids anywhere. Crazy lady who crashes into ambulances.

**My friend had one of those nifty camera phones and took a picture of the truck after I crashed it. I showed it to Sam and of course he saw the fire truck in the picture and still has not gotten it out of his head that I hit it. Doesn't matter how many times I say that it came AFTER the accident to HELP mommy. How it has transpired into an ambulance is beyond me.