Ever heard a roomful of Kindergartners snoring?  Today I’m reading the book “A Snowy Day” to my class and they are to be acting it out.  They’re making snowmen and snow angels, climbing up snow mountains and sliding down.  They’re packing a snowball and putting it in their pocket.  And then they have to pretend they’re going to sleep.  And the snoring begins. Twenty little people curled up in fetal positions snoring as loudly as they can.  It was everything I could do not to laugh while I continued to read the book.  That’s the thing about kindergarten though – you never know what’s going to happen.

There’s nothing like hearing a group of little kids giggling about something silly.  Like the snowflake game.  Only it’s not snowflakes, it’s feathers.  We all sing a little snowflake song while the kids walk around the room and when the song ends we freeze.  Then I get to toss “snowflakes” at them and if any of the snowflakes touch them, they’re out.  The great uncertainly of how the feathers fly about means the kids could stand perfectly still and the feathers could miss them entirely, leading to squeals of laughter.  Or they could all land on someone’s head, leading to equally hardy squeals.  Today the biggest squeals came when I tossed them at my student teacher of course.  Life can be so simple.

There is such simplicity in getting to pick a partner for a dance or the smile on the face of the child who gets picked.  As adults, we dismiss these things as child’s play but the truth is that we too liked to be recognized by others, to be picked as someone special.  The excited intake of breath when I bring out a new instrument to be played or those aforementioned giggles seem to disappear as we grow up.  And what a shame.  The newness wears off, the cynicism and routine of life takes over and it seems childish to toss feathers in the air and giggle.

When was the last time you blew soap bubbles?  Or played in water, dirt or better yet, mud?  Or kicked or tossed a ball around?  When was the last time you played with a jump rope or, if you’re my age, jacks.  I loved jacks. There was time in our lives when these kinds of things were fun and we made time for them.  We had school all day, we had homework and we made time for fun.

I’ll be the first to admit that all I do is work anymore.  And when I’m not working I’m mindlessly checking out social media or watching TV as an escape.  Doing those fun things I did as a kid sound wonderful but at the same time are exhausting to even think about.  How in the world can I have time to do something fun?  I have so much to do.  It makes me less of a conversationalist as all I can think of to talk about is work.  Boring. And now I’ve taken on even more work that is completely out of my comfort zone.  The parts I can do I think I’ll do very well.  The out of my comfort zone stuff is going to take a lot of – you guessed it – work.  Can I afford not to do all this work?  I don’t know – I’m afraid to find out.  Isn’t life supposed to be about serving your purpose?  I feel like I’m trying to do that, but again, it’s not much fun.  Unless of course I live vicariously through those 5 and 6 years olds who squeal about feathers and pretend to snore.  Ok, maybe I don’t have to live vicariously with the snoring but I can still have fun watching kids play with feathers.