Master Staters-of-the-Obvious

               “Ms. Stone, you are wearing a skirt today!” 

               “Why, yes I am, Sarah.”

               When working with children, this is a fairly typical conversation.  The child makes an obvious statement and you try to respond without sarcasm.  After bumping into a student out in the real world I guarantee the child will start out the next school day with, “I saw you at the store!”  Even though I so badly would love to reply, “That was an imposter who stole my car and clothes.  I was in Hawaii.”  I won’t, because little humans tend to be gullible and it wouldn’t be very nice to confuse their little minds.  Instead I say with manufactured enthusiasm, “I saw you, too!”

               Never is this talent of the young for stating the obvious more apparent than when snowflakes start falling from the sky.  You should try it next time there is a snow flurry.  Just find a reason to stop by your nearest elementary school to watch and listen.  On second thought, maybe not…especially if you are a stranger to the school and might be pegged as a creeper. But if you have a real reason to hang out with kids when snow starts falling you’ll see what I mean.

                Yesterday afternoon we had that rare excruciatingly exciting event.  “It’s snowing.  It’s SNOWING!” I am certain I heard that two-word phrase squealed over a thousand times in a span of 30 minutes…and if you don’t count the times it came out of MY mouth, the number would still be in the triple digits.  We all get excited when it snows, but it seems the child needs to say it over and over and over again to make sure it is real – kind of like pinching yourself to make sure you’re not dreaming.

            Thankfully there were only a few short minutes left in the school day so no serious learning was interrupted.  The librarian, while wrapping up a lesson on research was working with a small group, looked up to see the rest of the first grade class lined up at the window, chanting the phrase.  Two-and-a-half seconds later her small group had joined the chanting and Mrs. C knew she had lost them for the day.  She simply walked over to the non-fiction section, raised her voice to be heard over the chatter and pointed out the section of books on “SNOW.”  What else can you do?  Nobody competes with snow.

            A third grade teacher reported that when the “It’s SNOWING!” cacophony began in his classroom, one boy pointed to the large wall calendar adorned with images of trees covered in white and said matter-of-factly, “Of course it’s snowing.  It’s December, isn’t it?”

            I watched as several pairs of students galloped through the halls squealing the words to every face in sight.  As a playground supervisor came in the front doors with a sloppy layer of white slush blanketing her shoulders and hat, a pair of second graders shouted to her, “It’s SNOWING!  It’s SNOWING!” 

She couldn’t resist the sarcasm and answered dramatically, “Really?”  The kids didn’t seem to mind.  They just gazed out the windows with gigantic grins.

We often giggle at the naivety of children.  We scoff at their simplistic view of the world.  When children make such obvious observations, we smile with the adult superior smirk of wisdom.  But I think these wide-eyed young’uns are smarter than we are.  As we grow up and become mature and respectable adults we lose the ability to find pure joy so easily, to get completely lost in the moment.  I dare all of you “grown-ups” to let loose next time you see the first snowflakes.  I want to hear a big, deep, adult chorus of “It’s SNOWING!”