Munchkins.

I am not good with children. For those of you who don't spend a lot of time with me, you may not know this. But I'm not good with kids. They kind of freak me out.

Some of my friends find this amusing and generally warn me when children will be somewhere I'm going. Some of them find it annoying. In deference to the latter group, I'm trying to work on my aversion to people under 10.

To practice, I've been spending time with a friend's family. I met the husband initially at school, and have since become friends with his precious wife and their daughter, who is three-and-a-half (aka "prime age for Kim to avoid").

Last night, the wife and daughter and I went to see Horton Hears a Who. Adorable movie, highly recommended. The munchkin, probably like most girls her age, wasn't a big fan of sitting still. She insisted on sitting next to me for most of the movie and proceeded to climb all over me, play with my hair, steal my snack food, and sit in my lap.

I didn't hit her. I feel like that was really good for me. I didn't even yell at her or poke her or anything.

Then we went to Starbucks and got tea and visited for a couple of hours and I STILL didn't yell at her. Even when she ran around and stole my purse and kept wanting to be held. Yay me!

Today I visited their house and we did an easter egg hunt and then went to church.

They are LDS (Mormons, for those of you not in the know), and in LDS churches they divide services up by "wards"- groups who attend at certain times. We went to family ward.

I am now going to change topic briefly, and reference a movie you should all have seen- Children of Men. In case you haven't watched it yet, rent it, and in the mean time just understand that, in the film, the world has descended into anarchy because no one in the world can have children anymore and the human race is going to die out soon. It's very bleak and there are NO children anywhere in the world.

Back to the original post- Family ward at an LDS church is like the opposite of Children of Men. Seriously. Like, there was never a single second that there wasn't a kid talking, crying, laughing, bumping into something, etc. etc. etc. The kid behind me (this is my favorite part) was reading aloud a book called "what we do when we're reverent" WHILE the speaker was giving the message. I found that hugely ironic and funny.

I laughed a lot.

And I was nice to everyone.

I feel like I've had a lot of personal growth lately. I also feel like my best friend is laughing as she reads this, since she knows exactly what a family ward is like. That's all for now about kids. Unless you'd like me to practice on your children as well, in which case you should call me.