A Handful of Yellow Flowers

I've starting interning in a kindergarten classroom this semester. It was a little scary the night before my first day...I mean, all my life I've thought I wanted to be a kindergarten teacher, but the last time I was in a kindergarten classroom I was only ten years old! What if I got to the class and found out it really wasn't what I wanted to do? So much meaning would have been lost for...well, my life to be honest.

But the good news is, I absolutely adore it. I've only been there two days and I am in love with every aspect of it. Yesterday I mostly observed, but today I really got to interact with the kids and it was better than I ever could have imagined. The way they look at the world, the way they interact, the things they understand...it amazes me. Even the kids with the hardest lives back home are still eager - maybe not eager for the same thing; some are eager to learn, some for attention, some to feel important, some just eager for everything - and you can see it before you even talk to them. It's so motivating...

Today I was given handfuls and handfuls of yellow flowers accompanied with little voices saying, "Here Ms. Downing, I picked these for you!" Little ones would just walk up and hold my hand as we walked down the hall for PE. And a couple little girls looked me in the eye when I first got there and said, "You're really pretty Ms. Downing." Talk about a self-esteem boost. It's funny that although other people have said that to me in a different way, I've never felt it to be as true as when I heard it today. It has to do with the natural and unfiltered speech that I know little kids have - they tell the truth, they don't get the concept of white lies or things like that. They simply speak what's on their minds.