Miniatures

On Sunday Riverside gained a new pastor. It’s been a long road to walk down. Anyway, since Karen Bransgrove was having a conniption over the lack of workers there were for the nursery I decided to volunteer.

For some reason I try to stay away from working with kids too often. I’m not sure why. But since I haven’t spent a ton of time around children it was a very interesting experience. I found myself wondering, “How much do they really know? How much do they really understand?” It’s kind of weird really. Your standing around all these miniature people and you’re just not really sure how much they’re picking up. Sometimes I’m not sure we give them enough credit. I tend to treat kids like adults. It goes along with my philosophy that if you expect more from people (kids or adults) then that’s what you’ll get. They’ll rise to the challenge. That didn’t prevent them from adding weight to their diapers and throwing fits when they couldn’t have the toy they wanted but I stand by my philosophy.

Plus the idea of “baby talk” sends chills down my spine.

Anyway, there is something magical about kids. I’m not sure what it is. They’re just so different than we are. For example I sat down at one of the miniature tables that they have in each room. It was snack time. There were three other kids sitting at the table. My addition made it a full group. These kids were just sitting there eating their Cheetos and Animal Crackers. Personally, I think that’s a less than desirable combination of snack food but they didn’t seem to mind. It was silent. There weren’t any conversations going. They were just sitting there. Staring at me (they never really stare at each other. Just at us big folks). Normally when I join a group I would have felt the need to introduce myself or start up some small talk but for some reason I didn’t feel the need this time. We were all content to just sit there and stare at each other. They, with their orange resin coated hands and slimy faces and me, dressed up for church and for the most part, relatively presentable. Normally I would have felt out of place but they didn’t seem to mind so neither did I.

After a while the silence was broken by a chorus of voices asking for more snacks...somehow they got done all at the same time. Some of them were polite and some of them were not so polite but all desired the same end. More pass-time-goodies to stuff their faces with. I think they polished off half a bag of Cheetos (which was about the size of one of those little rug rats) and a few smaller bags of Animal Crackers. Much to the chagrin of their mothers, I’m sure we ruined numerous appetites for lunch. I think children are like fish. You have to be careful how much you feed them because they'll keep eating until they pop. One thing I’m not so sure about is where all those snacks went. They just kept on packing it in.

Actually I know where one kid put it.

I changed my first diaper Dec. 12th, 2004. It was kind of anticlimactic really. Actually it was just plain weird. While I was changing this one kids diaper he was just sitting there staring at me. I wanted to make small talk but what do you say in a situation like that. I didn’t feel like the tried and true weather conversation would be appropriate and politics was the farthest thing from my mind. So we sat there in silence. He, content in blankly staring at his diaper changer and I doing everything I could to keep my breakfast down. Actually it wasn’t quiet. Half way through the ordeal his twin sister came up and peeked over the railing and started cheering me on. Apparently it was a very exciting moment for her.

Honestly I could’ve used the encouragement. Perhaps the whole thing would have been a lot worse had I not had a poop cheerleader spurring me on.

I think the highlight of my day consisted of being climbed over by 3 to 5 2 year olds who don’t know me from Adam while one small pretty little girl laid in my lap and after a while looked up at me and said, "I love you."

Yeah, it was a good day.

I think my finger still smells like poop though.

Merry Christmas.