Dreaming of Silver Roses

 

 

            I have spent this week combining two of my favorite things – small kids and books! I worked at the Scholastic Book Fair at Mat and Abbey’s school. It was a blast for me.

 

           

I had the most fun today. My job this week has been to stock the shelves with TONS of pencils, posters, games, specialty items, and books (yeah, real burden for the bookworm). Then to escort the classes through the process of either buying the items they wanted or creating a wish list to take home to show parents so if they wanted to do so they could purchase them later.

 

A class came in today and just could not get the price thing for themselves. I showed them individually and corporately about four times where to look on the items and it was just simpler to them to keep asking me how much each item was! They are first and second graders so I didn’t mind. I can’t tell you how many of the kids would look up at me for a second, pause as if asking permission, and hug me. I can’t tell you how many hands I held. I can’t tell you how many “big tough boys” would sneak over shyly and act like they were showing me a football player book just to get as close to my body as possible so that I would put my hand on their shoulder and say “Oh yeah? I see. Wow”! Oh yes, hog heaven for me on so many levels!

 

I was able to talk about Narnia, Junie B. Jones, Skippy John Jones the Siamese Cat who thinks he’s a super hero Chihuahua, Corduroy the bear, science books, history books, current video gaming stuff, music – Hannah Montana, Raven, Beyonce and more, Barbie, Tinkerbelle, and by the time I’m done I will have a liberal arts degree in High School Musical 1 & 2- and tons more. I was able to hear the kids. I was able to hear visiting parents, tired teachers, tired staff, and more. Very loving words were shared and some complaints (not many actually, but some). I really loved it. It was a sacred moment to grasp.

Some of my favorite memories will be my boy leaning over the second floor rail looking into the open roof of the library nestled in the center of school surrounded by a double decker shell of classrooms calling down as discretely as a second grade boy a story above you can, “Hi, Mom!” and waving. His classmate, a young girl in line behind him, said, “THAT’S yo mama?” “Yeah?” said Mat as they were walking away into their classroom. “Oh yeah, she’s cool, dude.” “Yeah, I know.” says Mat very matter of fact.

Or Abbey seeing me walk into the lunch room to tell her I arrived with a huge grin. Mean while every kid at the table called out, “Abbey, it’s your mama! Look! Turn around and look!”

 

Or a small red haired freckled boy clasping my hand softly (I have a terrible weakness for red heads. Always have. It’s horrible.) and looking up at me with bright blue eyes, “You got a dollar, Miss? I would do anything for just a dollar.” I could have cried on sight at his sincerity. “I’m sorry, honey,” pulling out my empty pockets to show him, “I don’t have anything with me.” He sighs and walks away. I help a few girls and he comes back with a small cute grin and sidles up to me tenderly grasping my hand. “Miss, I found this.” Pressing a dime in my hand. “It’s not much but you’re broker than I am!”  We both laugh so hard and I immediately go to the locker and and pull 50 cents from my purse and buy a big heart shaped eraser and sneak it to his teacher with the story and ask her to discretely give it to him for his giving heart. (But you knew I would do something didn’t you. That is a little man who know the value of “You had me at hello” power!) There was a small girl who kept coming over and asking me a million questions about various things and I finally after petting her, “Very cool, smart girl!” She ran off telling every kid in her class, “She said I was smart! She called me smart girl I’m a smart kid!” There was a little boy named David and off the cuff while working with him I said, “Did you know that there was a great king of Israel named David? He didn’t start out as a king, but just a kid.” “What did he do to work his way up?”

It has been a really fun experience. I have one more afternoon tomorrow to relish. I can’t think of anything I have enjoyed as much in a while.

 

Filed under: hobby, humor, kids, life on April 4th, 2008