Courage and Coffee The Early Years: Ethan's First Field Trip!

Last Friday, Ethan's entire morning preschool went on a field trip! I was so excited because parents were able to go too! So, I took they "day off" from watching my sister's kiddos, and headed to the park where the school buses filled with excited 3 year olds were going to meet us.

After I paid my entrance fee, I found Ethan & his class, signed him "out" to my care, got our animal feed (inside an ice cream cone that the animals could eat as well), and we were off! This particular park is a place full of barn yard type animals. We saw ducks, rabbits, chickens, horses, cows, goats, pigs, sheep, and a turtle.....which upon closer inspection was actually a floating clump of dirt in the water, but we will say it was a turtle.

To say that Ethan loved it would be an understatement.....he was ECSTATIC! He kept saying, "Let's go see ANOTHER animal!" It was so cute! Here's a short video.....

I was so impressed with my child during this field trip. He was getting right in there....in the midst of all of the kids.....and looking at the animals, playing on the playground, going down an ENCLOSED slide, and just being a kid! All of these things.....ALL OF THESE THINGS.....he wouldn't do at the beginning of the year. He was too terrified. He would be so overcome with anxiety to do any of these things that he would either cling to me or have a meltdown. So, I would have to do these things with him. BUT NOT TODAY!!!! YEAH!!!! I just watched in amazement as he did every single thing on the playground all by himself!....and was having FUN!!!! We did every single thing there and NO MELTDOWNS!!!! IT WAS AWESOME!

Before we left, Ethan wanted to feed the rest of his animal feed & ice cream cone to the "Big Horse." When we made our way over to the horse pen, someone was already feeding the big horse. So Ethan just threw his cone inside the pen, and was ready to go. It happened so fast that I didn't even realize what he had done until one of the park's volunteers retrieved the cone & handed it back to him. She took Ethan's hand & helped him feed the small horse the entire cone. She was telling him how to hold it while keeping her hand over his on the cone. She was very encouraging & calmed Ethan's nerves of feeding the horse as well as being so close to someone he didn't know. Ethan was laughing & smiling by the time the small horse ate every morsel of that cone. I am so glad that I had my sunglasses on because my eyes were red with tears. The kindness of this stranger is rare for us. Usually we encounter looks of confusion or stares of annoyance or smiles of pity....but not from this sweet young lady. She kindly took Ethan up to the horse without asking him & happily held his hand in place while they feed this horse.....and Ethan loved it. Here are some pictures of this wonderful moment.....

It was a great field trip, and I'm so glad I was able to go with Ethan's school. Ethan has asked us every day since last Friday if we could go to the Farm Park. He even had an entire spontaneous conversation with my mom about it! (Spontaneous means Ethan came up with his own words.) I am thinking we may be making many trips to this park & probably the local zoo as well. I love to see Ethan so happy & so independent. I never thought I would see him do the things he is doing.....and that calls for some celebration! Let's get another cup of coffee while we look at some more pictures!!!!