Field Trip to the Wet Market with Maddie Mae

Today was a big day for Maddie and fifteen of her favorite friends. The kids had their first field trip this year. From the looks on their faces at the coffee shop after doing their vegetable shopping, picking flowers to secretly buy for the teacher and buying a cool lime juice at the hawker stalls it was a smashing success. Maddie absolutely adores her teacher Ms. Kiran and their aide Ms. Fitzah.

When she saw the flower shop she first wanted to buy flowers for me. She picked chrysanthemums that were dyed nearly neon green because, she reasoned, I like the color green.

Looking around I showed her what I thought looked like my moms favorite flower that she always has in the front flower boxes in the front yard. Then she decided I didn't need flowers but Ms. Kiran did and chose what I had pointed out as grandma's favorite. Two other girls joined in picking to buy the teacher flowers too. One cute girl has a tendency to boss Maddie around and either make her choices for her or copy whatever Maddie does so they are always exactly the same (from walking exactly next to each other to coloring a butterfly the same on every single stripe and polka dot).

After a bit of time with her friend at the flower shop she finally whispered in my ear that she was changing her plan and giving them to Ms. Fitzah. I was proud she was thinking on her own and being so selfless in her thoughts because most days she would have only wanted flowers for herself.

Jake of course isn't quite there yet. We now have chrysanthemums dyed neon blue in the middle of our dinner table. The kids all love them and I'd say they were totally worth $0.80.