Kids

When I was a kid, I loved to play. Now that I’m somewhat of an adult, I still love to play. But even more than playing, I love the kids I get to play with.

My prime examples are these three kids I know and love: Jed, Alannah, and Zeke. Yesterday afternoon I had the awesome privilege of surprising the three during playtime! I had to talk to their father about something mighty important, and then as we were walking I just sort of walked inside with him and said, “by the way… I’m here to hang out with your kids if they’re awake.”

I ended up finding out where they were from their mother who was sitting on the couch enjoying the company of two lovely ladies who are also students at school. I felt really weird and childish brushing past the three to get to the kids, but I’ve never been one to socialize with people my age. The two students and I know each other, but I wouldn’t call us good friends, so I just sort of said hello and headed upstairs.

(: Zeke shrieked so loud when I poked my head through the door. He’s got a set of lungs, that kid. Alannah and Jed’s mouths just kind of dropped, and Alannah asked, “are you here to play with us?!” Oh, I love them.

What I love more is their imagination. They had set up some lego characters on an upside down box, using the bottom as a roof of a building. Apparently, all of these lego men (all star wars, of course) were fighting an unseen enemy (Satan?). Lucky for them, though, one of their men had special eyes that could see the enemy, so he was able to direct the troops how/where/when/who to fight. Oh, Jedidiah.

After I played with them and their legos for a while, I told them I had to go, and Alannah threw a fit (sort of). When I had finally gotten down to the back door, she locked it and made me sit down. We giggled and laughed and talked about silly things for a little while, and then she gave me a huge hug and climbed up in my lap, grabbed my face and said these awesome words: “I wish you were my real big sister.”

Oh, my heart! I was so speechless, and so full of love for her. I wish I was her real big sister, too.

After that, she started whispering plans to hang out in my ear. Her whispers are fantastic, because she pushes out so much air when she talks that it tickles my ear. I turn into a little girl again because it tickles so much, and she didn’t understand why I was giggling. And that made her giggle. Which made me giggle even more. So now, we’re both giggling and laughing and she’s still trying to whisper in my ear which is causing more giggling! Eventually, we somehow make tentative plans to hang out when I get back from Pittsburgh in two weeks. I think we’ll rent a movie from Redbox or something, and I’ll take her to the dollar store to get a few things. She was real set on me buying her birthday presents, even though her birthday was about three months ago.

She’s my favorite five year old. I mean, if she’s actually five. I can’t remember. haha.