Admittedly, my blog was snarkier when I was working with the high school/middle school students on a regular basis. The situations that they put themselves (and me, sometimes) in were just too damn humorous not to blog about. Working at the elementary school, while exhausting, puts me in a "Kids Say the Darndest Things" just about every day. And while I love kids just as much as the next person, I don't document every teeny itty bitty witty thing they say to me for two reasons:
1. Enough is enough! I know how I feel when I'm sitting with some of the women on base here listening about Janey's latest tooth or poop or whatever hell else that kid did that day. In excruciating detail. I want to poke my eyes out with crayola crayons and sharpen my fingers in the electric pencil sharpener.
2. I can't blog in too much detail about the little lovelies I work with. They are protected, by very big words and very aggressive lawywers. Last thing I need is my ass in a sling. Well figuratively, that is.
That does NOT mean that I won't tell you about the precious little girl I was working with today (SHHH! Yes, I do actually like kids. Don't ruin my reputation.) . She is a particular sort of beauty, even at 6. She is petite and of mixed ethnicities, with enormous round amber eyes and the most beautiful dirty blond curly hair, that she often wears in pig tails or braids. It is not her looks that make her attractive, however. She is respectful, polite, enthusiastic, intelligent, inquisitive, and when she takes my hand and looks in to my eyes, I just melt. If you wink at her, she winks back. She's like an old soul in that little body, she is.
Today she and I were making "Indian" headbands - consisting of brown strips of paper for the "leather" and several strips of multi-colored construction paper that they were to cut into feathers and then secure on to the strip of paper, therefore turning them into Instant Indians. (In my defense, the project wasn't my damn idea. None of the Indians I know wear headbands like that, and when they do wear feathers, they wear LOADS of them on beautiful beaded headdresses. Snark, snark. Who would I be if I weren't pissed off about some ethnic stereotype? Y'all should know better, by now! Especially when it is one of my ethnicities!) As this little girl was furiously cutting out her feathers she turns to her partner, a very gregarious little boy and mentions that she's making herself into a "good Indian". He applied in the affirmative, and she clarified, saying that she wasn't going to be "one of those cooking Indians." The boy agreed again. Most of the time I'll let children talk and explore their imaginations, but I honestly had NO IDEA what the HELL this little cherub of a girl was talking about, which is sometimes par for the course when eavesdropping in on young children's conversations. I was nearby. I took the bait.
TCWH: Them cookin' Indians? Is that what you said?
LCOAG: Yes. I want to be a nice Indian. Not one of those cookin' Indians.
TCWH: How about that? And what are "those cookin' Indians", exactly?
LCOAG: The ones that cook!
TCWH: Of course, I'm sorry. What is it that they cook?
LCOAG: (annoyed, as if this is common knowledge) They cook and EAT little children!
TCWH: ????? Are you sure? I'm Indian, and I've never eaten any little kids.
LCOAG: (exasperated by my adultness and inability to think clearly) That's because you're nice! And you don't like to eat blood! Little kids have lots and lots of blood inside them! You eat chicken! See?
TCWH: Hunh.
I wonder what she thinks is in the stuffing?