Apparently, I do not scare children whatsoever 🤪. Not that I was trying to. In fact, I seem to have the opposite effect on them.
You see, I was working at the library, finishing up yesterday’s post, when an older child (9 y.o I learned) comes though the young adult section, looking like he was on a mission. I asked if he was looking for a quiet place and he nodded as he raced off. A few minutes later he returns and interrupts me to ask me if I was in that section because it was quiet, which, of course, I was. Well, he took that as an invitation to sit down and join me 😆😆😆 (there was another table right nearby, so I’m guessing he just wanted someone to talk to). He pulls out his slime (with glitter – I hate glitter 😜) from its container and proceeds to play with it all while asking me various questions. I gotta say, kids have no filter when it comes to personal questions 😬. Fortunately, I don’t mind because I know it comes from a place of curiosity and short answers are best 😊.
While we are chatting, his three-year-old brother decides to join us!?! And he starts pulling books of shelves to “read”. And he was polite enough to grab one for all three of us 💜. As he’s paging through the book, a third boy (7 y.o. if I had to guess?) decides to join us 🤯. At this point, I am not sure what happened, but I was surrounded by three children that were not related to me 😳. They were related to each other though. At this point the oldest is annoyed and takes off. The middle child takes off after him, as I suspect he wanted his brother’s attention. The youngest hangs around for a while longer before realizing the others aren’t coming back, so he scoots on out of there.
At this point, I put away my computer away just in case (thankfully I had finished a second pass on my post before closing down). And it was a good thing because a few minutes later the oldest was back, hiding from the other two and went back to him showing off his skills with his slime and asking more questions 😆. Not five minutes later, the middle child comes back with a book followed by what I thought was the youngest. Because, lo and behold, their (very loud) toddler sister decides we are having so much fun she needs to join 🤦♀️. So, the toddler is using her voice to command attention, the three-year-old is talking about ghosts, the 7-year-old shows me a children’s book on geography (which I encouraged him to check out 😁) and the oldest looks like he just wants some peace and quiet 🤫.
This keeps up for about 30-40 minutes – them tagging in and out at my table. And my library friends keep walking by wondering why I have children that clearly don’t belong to me and I’m just trying to figure out how I became the watcher of unknown children during all of that 🤔?!?
I must give off some sort of vibe that I am a “safe” adult to be around. And mostly, I don’t mind as it seems to be my lot in life to entertain children and play with animals 🤷♀️. But I was relieved when their grandmother (I’m assuming) came to gather them up because 4 young children is a lot of energy coming at you 😆😆.
Unfortunately, as a parting gift, I ended up with glitter on me 😱😱. I REALLY hate that stuff 😡.
My Lemons My Lemonade 