Forever Kids at heart

Happy May Day! I am so over joyed that April has come to an end and at the same time SHOCKED that it is already passed. When I lived back east I always looked forward to the beginning Spring season. Even the rain since that usually meant beautiful flowers would be making an entrance back into the world.

Now that I live in the Mid-West the month of April doesn’t really do it for me… April is to Iowa what March is back east in Delaware. Seasonal changes from day to day with the un-sureness of if mother nature is ready to let go of Winter or not. Now I look ahead to May with the true understanding that in the Mid West, “April Showers brings May Flowers”. The bulbs are showing their legs and I’m finally starting to see little traces of color emerge.

On another note, this month has been incredibly busy at work since April means College Visit Month for our Juniors and middle school students. I am happy to say I survived 7 separate campus visits, with a total of 118 students, and ZERO casualties.

I enjoy being able to spend the day with my students since I usually don’t get much one on one time to really get to know them and form a relationship. On one of the middle school trips I sat on the bus with a group that is usually very quiet and we started to chat about the things we like to watch on TV. I laughed when one girl asked me what the last movie was I had watched.

“Well, actually this past weekend my husband and I were clicking through the TV channels and came across The Little Mermaid. Jokingly, I left it on for a minute and then told him we could watch something else and he responded no, I cant remember what happened in this one… just leave it on".

The students giggled a bit and could not believe that we watched it so I explained that {G} and I love to watch kid movies. One girl said… “but you don’t even have kids”, and started to giggle again. I laughed and said, “You are right! But just because you’re a grown up doesn’t mean you have to give up your inner kid.”

We continued to talk about what our favorite kid movies were and I told them that our favorite is Despicable Me (One & Two) and that this past July 4th {G} and I opted to go to the empty movie theater to watch it instead of sitting in a crowd of people in the hot sun.

The part I loved about the entire conversation was when one of my not so “good” kids said, “That’s really cool that you and your husband don’t care about what others think.”

I cringe back to those middle school days when I worried about what others thought of me. These conversations where I allow myself as an adult to be real with these students are so important in their growth. All that they see on TV anymore is superficial petty junk and what they see is what they believe they should act like.

They need role models and “REAL” people that can tell them its okay to be different, goofy, and that it’s okay to like what you like. Obviously, real people don’t make ratings on TV and if they aren’t getting it in their surrounding environments then most likely they are picking up habits from what they watch on TV.

I enjoyed the conversation very much and am happy that I can allow myself not to be worried about what others think for the sake of being an authentic person to students that often struggle with figuring out who they want to become.

Disney movies are some of my favorites and I don’t care how old I get I will forever be a kid at heart.