Wednesday, June 26, 2013

The Kids at the Park and My Green Chuck Taylors

A few weeks ago at my favorite dog park, I was accosted by three children, ages 4, 5 and 6. They asked about my dog Jake and in one short, 2-word answer I suddenly had a gaggle of tiny best friends who proceeded to tell me their life story. I found out that the boy in the yellow shirt is Jacob but everyone calls him Jake and so he and my dog must be twins because they have the same name.  They were rather disappointed to discover that my dog, is absolutely not a Jacob. The brother and sister, Arianna and Christian, are moving here from California and their cousin Jacob is moving here from New Jersey and they will be next-door neighbors. They have a small playhouse in the yard and their house is blue and Jacob's house is white. They made sure to tell me what road they will be living on in West Asheville and that both houses are on the same piece of property. Their cars are loaded down with stuff and they barely have any room to fit.  They told me they will be moving into their houses... "hmmm, maybe today".  I now know that Jake doesn't know when he will turn 6 but that he had an Angry Birds party when he turned 5 but he has no idea when that was either. Arianna will have a Hello Kitty party for her 7th birthday in September and she will have a pink cake with a "7" candle on top. She says, she will make a wish but not tell anyone what it is or it won't come true.  Four-year-old Christian cut his finger in the tiniest way possible and it <em>would</em> be producing only a tiny amount of blood except that he keeps squeezing it to make it bleed so that he can justify it requiring a bandaid to make it all better. Bandaids make ow-ies better. Arianna and I discussed nine different choices...NINE choices, we counted them...about how he could handle his near-fatal wound, including NOT squeezing it quite so much.  She rejected amputation in favor of a the bandaid idea.  Christian can hula hoop and whistle but not at the same time although he tries.  I have been made aware that their last name has a grand total of nine letters in it and how to spell it.  I was promptly corrected when I got several of the 9 letters in the wrong order.  Arianna's name has two N's and not just one and Jacob's name has only five.  J-A-C-O-B can be spelled in less than two seconds and that is a very exciting thing to do when you are 5. Repeatedly.  J-A-C-O-B-J-A-C-O-B-J-A-COBJACOB!!!!  Whew!  Turns out, I can do it that fast too, even at my age. They were excited to see that I wear green Chuck Taylors.  Jacob has a red pair just like them only they're much, much smaller but he's not wearing them right now because he can put his sandals on all by himself.  And it's summer.  Arianna's favorite colors are pink and purple but she does have a green shirt, just like my shoes, with a shamrock on it that she wore for "that day the leprechauns came". They inquired about my favorite color, I said blue, and they noted that both my T-shirt and my jeans are my favorite.  They became very concerned when they noticed that it appears that my dog's brains are leaking out of the top of his head in a tiny little "brain-looking thing" poking through his fur. I explained that it's only a wart which incited a thought-provoking discussion on the qualities a frog must possess in order to become a prince when kissed. Frogs with warts don't become princes but they will certainly give you a wart if you kiss them, whereas frogs without warts are way more likely to be a prince.  Talking about frogs brought up a discussion of puddles and all three children were completely mesmerized by my tale of puddle jumping and splashing in a torrential downpour at that very park just days before.  They wanted to know the exact location of said puddle.  We talked about how much fun it is to get dirty and to play in the sand and how we both love the beach.  This entire conversation lasted maybe 15 minutes at the most. I say they "accosted" me but the truth is, I was more than delighted to talk with them and I'm willing to bet that only a minute more and they would have brazenly climbed into my lap as if they were about to talk to Santa. As it were, their grubby fingers and bright, smiling faces were practically in my face but I didn't care. The sharp eyes of a parent were close enough nearby to bark orders like "get out of her face!" and ultimately to call them away for lunch.  In only fifteen minutes, their unbridled enthusiasm for life profoundly touched my life and spoke directly to my soul. Sometimes I need to be reminded that pure joy can be found in the simple things like the color of your shoes and more often than not, at least for me, it's a child who does the reminding.

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