Me + Kids

I think it's safe to say that I don't really like kids all that much. They're generally annoying and are usually emitting an offensive noise/smell. Kids seem to like me though, I don't know why. It's like when a cat demands attention from the one person in the room who's allergic to them. I don't mind holding a baby or having a short discussion with a preschooler, but after a few minutes, they need to leave.

This doesn't mean that I haven't spent much of my life voluntarily spending time with kids. I worked at a toy store for 5 years! A toy store that had demo toys out on the floor, encouraging hyper active children to run around and make a mess. It also (not on purpose) encouraged parents to leave their children playing at the store while they went shopping at Kohl's.

While I got paid for dealing with children at the Zany Brainy, I did not get paid for the countless hours I spent helping in the church nursery and Awana. Kids are everywhere at church. You can't get away from them. I also helped my friend Joyce in her Sunday School class full of 1st graders (I think). This was the most fun church/kids experience because I got to hang out with Joyce and I convinced all the kids that Jesus' favorite color is blue. Suckers! In all the cheezy Sunday School curriculum, Jesus is always wearing blue. One day, the kids were painting pictures of Jesus and I told them that it was clear that Jesus' favorite color is blue, so they better paint him blue. They all believed me, which I wasn't really expecting. (Kids are so gullible!) However, there was one little boy that as annoyingly defiant, and he challenged my theory. He boldly stated that he was not going to paint Jesus blue, but he was going to go with purple. I told him that purple is just blue and red mixed so, technically, he's still kind of painting Jesus blue. Yeah, I won that argument.

There are some children that I do like a lot. They are: kids in my family and my friend Joyce's kids. Joyce's kids were the only kids I consented to babysit in high school, and it was fun. They were well behaved and I taught them all kinds of wonderful things.

My cousins' kids are starting to get a little older and it's highly entertaining. My oldest cousin has twins, a boy and a girl, and they're hilarious. I spent some time the other day playing the piano with them. We took turns playing songs and I was impressed with the fact that they did not merely slam on the keys when it was their turn to play. They actually played individual notes. Then I played the easy piano version of the Entertainer and they were thrilled. At least someone is impressed with my piano playing abilities.