Where A Kid Can Be A Kid!

I started my Children’s Choir yesterday and it was an awesome experience. I am so excited to spend the rest of my summer with these awesome kids and be singing about God! I had everything planned out. I was going to teach them one song that had some great dance moves and I figured that would take the entire 45 minutes. I had two other “back-up” songs just in case, but I didn’t really prepare myself to teach them. Well…it took the kids all of 20 minutes to learn all 3 songs…I completely underestimated their learning ability. So after going through each song a few more times (more like 10 each) and singing Jesus Loves Me 4 or 5 times just for fun, we decided to play Simon Says and have the kid’s guess our ages. (They guessed that I was 100…I suppose I look a lot older than I thought).

As we were spending time with these wonderful little girls keeping them occupied and getting to know them, I realized something. These kids knew exactly who they were and weren’t afraid or ashamed of that. They said whatever they wanted to say whenever they wanted to say it (even if it was telling me about their flip flop during a song) and it seemed as if they never even thought about whether or not they were “fitting in”.

The sad part was that I was completely envious of these little kids. I don’t have the ability to say whatever I want to say or not care what other people think of me. I am always thinking about what others think of me or of what they will think about what I am about to say. I am always so cautious about who I am in front of different people. I change who I am based on the people I’m with and I have been doing this for years. I hide how I really feel or would really act in certain situations in order to “fit in”. I wish that I could be like those kids and not worry about whether I am “fitting in” or saying the right things.
So I’m going to work on not worrying about that so much this summer. I know that this isn’t going to be an overnight thing, however, I really wish it was. I want to change the way I feel right now and I am way too impatient to wait. I’m hoping that this summer I can think about this a lot more and try to not change myself so much for the people around me.

Well I think that is all I have to say for now. I’m babysitting again on Wednesday so it looks like more Dora the Explorer and playing with Hess truck for me. I think I need to practice my truck noise before then. I also think that I need to pick a few more maybe longer and more difficult songs before Sunday too!

~Shannon