Jacob got to go to the Rodeo!

Jacob came home from school one day in January with a note saying that the special education students at our elementary school had a great opportunity to go to the rodeo on a field trip in March.  There was a parent meeting at the end of January to give us all the information and answer any of our questions.

At the parent meeting they let us know that because one of our PPCD teachers serves on the committee for special needs kids for Houston she was able to get enough tickets for all our school's special needs kids, teachers, para-teachers, vice principal over special needs and a few other people at the school who work with our special needs kids.  Apparently this committee works with the rodeo every year and gives tickets for special needs kids, but for some reason it is really hard to come by the tickets.  Our school was the only one in our school district and she had to pull some strings to get the tickets this year for our kiddos.

Some parents were a bit concerned about the fact that parents were not allowed to chaperone the kids and go along.  But not only were they not able to get enough tickets for parents to go along, but you know how kids act different for other people than for their own parents?  They said that this type of thing is compounded for most of these special needs kids and they didn't want them confused about what was expected of them if they were there with both teachers and parents.  That and every adult going is qualified to work with all these special kids whose needs are all varied and while a parent might know how to handle their own child, they most likely wouldn't be able to help other children there.

We were assured that all the kids would be as safe as possible.  Shirts were ordered so that all kids were wearing the same shirt, they all had matching bandanas and they all wore wristbands with the teacher's cell phone number on them.  And almost the entire committee for special needs kids for Houston would be there making sure that kids stayed with their groups, all their needs were met, etc.

I was not one of the concerned parents questioning why the parents couldn't chaperone.  I was glad to hear that Jacob was going to have a chance to go to the rodeo!  The Houston Rodeo is a huge event here that goes on for 2-3 weeks and always begins at the end of February.  They have activities for kids and adults of all ages.  Justin and I had discussed whether or not to take the kids, but the truth is our kids are too young and disobedient for us to want to take them.  Jacob is getting better about listening to us (about time since he is almost 5) but back when this was being planned we were still having lots of trouble getting him to even acknowledge when we are talking to him, much less do what we say.  None of our kids follow rules (and then act all upset when they are disciplined) and we felt like the rodeo would be a difficult place to try to keep our kids under control.  We could imagine all the crying and whining from all of our kids (NONE of our kids are easy going).

All in all - we thought Jacob would enjoy the rodeo, but we had no intentions of taking him.  And the teachers promised to take lots of pictures and give all the parents CD's of all the pictures taken.  So without much more commentary - here are pictures of Jacob at the rodeo!