Kids

If you have a chance to teach or work with kids in any way, take it.

I used to think that I didn't like kids at all. I thought I couldn't connect with them in any way, and that they're loud and they smell, etc.... Well, yeah, they are loud, and they can smell -- but I know a lot of grown-ups like that too. But I digress.

I've been teaching Sunday School at my church for the past three years now. The first year I taught the 2nd & 3rd graders, then I moved up with them and taught them as 3rd & 4th graders the next year. But then this year I had to let go and move back down to teach a new herd of 2nd & 3rd graders.

Letting go isn't easy. And that crop of kids I taught for two years were very prompt in telling me that they didn't like the fact I wasn't teaching them this fall.

Here is a conversation that took place by the cookies and punch table after service a few Sunday mornings ago. Rebecca is now a 4th grader, and she is a doll. Heck, all of them are hard to resist.

Rebecca (with hands on hips, head cocked to the side): Hey, why aren't you teaching us?
Me: I'm back to teaching the 2nd and 3rd graders this year.
R: You didn't tell us you weren't going to be teaching us.
Me: I thought I did....
R: No, you didn't.
Me: Well, I thought I did, I'm sorry.
R: You should be, you should have told us.
Me: You really wanted me to teach you again this year? You want me three years in a row? I'm pretty tough, and I think you'd get tired of me.
R: No, we wouldn't.

I was being interrogated by an 9 year old wearing a Sponge Bob t-shirt. She eventually uncornered me, but I still get the look from her here and there at church.

Ugh, they are hard to let go. Now they're all getting tall, and they're even smarter than they were before -- this is the class that once threw out the word "antidisestablishmentarianism" for an acrostic and also knew that "Genesis" means "creation." They also asked if God has grandparents. Try walking away from that.

So I still chat with them, but I'm back with a new group of 2nd & 3rd graders. There aren't as many as them, and they aren't as quick with the big words or knowledge of what certain words mean, but they can still make me smile and laugh.

This past week we were talking about Abraham and Sarah having to move away from their home. We sang Father Abraham, then it was down to the drawing time. There's me -- and I'm not that tall at 5'6" and change -- sitting on this tiny chair with them at the tiny table as we all talk about what we would take along with us if we had to make a big move.

"Food!"
"Water!"
"A first-aid kit" (no, that wasn't me)
"A helicopter!"

Not so sure about that one, but James really wanted to draw that on his "Big Move" drawing, so I let him. I helped him write "U-Haul" on the side of it so it made a little more sense with our lesson.

Then one of them said, "What about clothes?" And they all busted up. Then ensued a 10 minute laugh-fest for the four 7 and 8 year olds as they thought about having to move naked.

Okay, I was laughing too.

Peter said, "Hey, James, you have to take clothes along with you in your U-Haul helicopter because what if you crashed and then on the news we heard a story like 'A boy was found naked inside a crashed helicopter today, he forgot his clothes.'"

James added clothes to the U-Haul helicopter and then gave the picture to me. That picture is now on my fridge.