Had a great time in DC a while back, chaperoning a group of middle schoolers, including my daughter, on a trip to our nation's capitol. We packed a lot into three full days-several Smithsonian museums (musea?) Arlington National Cemetery, most of the memorials and monuments, the Capitol building, the White House, National Zoo, National Archives, and more.
So much to see and do, but what I liked best was lunch with my daughter the first day there. Not the food itself-an overpriced burger and a bag of chips-but the fact that she chose to sit with me (though at the suggestion of her friend). For the rest of the trip both before and after, she pretty much avoided me. Silly me for thinking we might have some fun, you know...together. After we got home I pressed her a bit about it and she admitted that she probably would have had a better time had I not come along. Bruised ego aside (again) I understood. It wasn't that I was embarassing her, it was more that I was simply cramping her style, with her kind of looking over her shoulder for her Dad on what would have otherwise been a carefree school trip with her friends.
File this one under trying a little too hard maybe. When I really stopped to think about it, I couldn't blame her for feeling the way she did and I was glad she was at least honest with me about it.
I still had a great time-it just wasn't exactly what I had hoped it would be as far as sharing it with my daughter-although I do hope that in the future, having gained perspective with time passing, that she will eventually be glad that I went on the trip.
Peace to the Planet...
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