How much I love kids...

Okay--so Chicken arrived yesterday morning, and to celebrate, we went to Target! (Yay?) Anyway, we were buying stuff for backstage mom-dom and recital rehearsal.

OI.

The first night is HALF the recital-- so, things are amazingly rushed. I was in charge of ten little girls, all of whom needed shoes tied, and who, during dress and actual recital, will need their costumes on.  The pace was pretty damned hectic-- sit down, change shoes get in line, go dance, get back, change shoes, get in line, WAAAAAAAIIIITTTTT, dance, get back, change shoes, go to the bathroom, get back and then line up to go.

Chicken's duty has been--and this is going on six years now that she's done this-- to line the kids up and shoo them off stage when it's time to go. She's good at it-- it's her spec-i-al-ity.  This year, she has asked for ZoomBoy's help to occupy the little darlings, because he's good at it, so as long as he's all dressed, he has a thing he can do, and I am proud.

But I have to say, one of the most rewarding moments came when she mentioned--of all the kids backstage--one of my little darlings.

"Oh Lord, there's this little girl named Josy, and--"

"OH MY GOD!" We both said at the same time.

See, Josy is that kid. You know, that kid. The kid who, when you put her in line with her back against the brick wall, can, in the space of ten minutes, find a bug, untie her shoes, untie other people's shoes, find gum, get in the way of the people walking back and forth and disappear around the corner twice. When Chicken was shooing kids off stage, Josy was the kid who went exactly the opposite way every damned time.

Josy is one of MY kids.

Can I just say how rewarding it was to know that, yes, my daughter was awesome, and yes, she's great with kids and yes... it wasn't just me, this little blue-eyed, pom-pom-haired angel was making us both insane.

I also had one of those moments--and I had one of these as a teacher, too--where I felt like crap because I kept confusing these two little girls. In this case, they were blonde, with hair cut exactly the same, and blue eyes, and I couldn't figure out which one was Brooke and which one was Kimber. Then as they were walking back to their parents I saw they both had identical sweaters to put on.

Because they were identical twins.

It's like you need a warning label for that, because I'm saying.

Anyway--recital time. Ugh.  I know I"ll be attached to these kids at the end of two weeks, but in the meantime? As I said on Twitter, I DO love children. Mostly, my own.