Today I did one of my favourite sets of kids.

Not sure why I’m so drawn to inner city kids, but I am.

Did my primary presentation for the primary kids and that often tuckers me out! Oh, they can be so squirmy!

Of course Big Red Lollipop settled them down. It was so cute how the kids who’d been fidgety became totally still at times, with that look on their faces, like they just couldn’t wait to hear what would happen next!

Oh it’s precious!

And I guess I’ve told the story enough times so that I can almost…but not quite…go on autopilot where part of me watches them watching me.

It’s hilarious!

But then, with the junior kids, I got to do The Roses in My Carpets.

It just never gets old for me.

Probably did that presentation about five thousand times in the fifteen years I’ve been published, and yet it’s still my favourite presentation!

So today, I was telling it like I always do, and this group of black boys, the boisterous kind, the kind you might think are being disrespectful but are really just excited, was sitting to the right of me, calling out right answers because they couldn’t wait for me to pick one of their classmates, and it was just wonderful, as always, and I got to the point where I talk about how being poor in countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan is a prison because the poor there have no access to knowledge, and for an instant, I almost lost it.

Almost, but not quite, completely got distracted by this boy sitting towards the back, away from the rambunctious group, a little black boy all by himself, listening so intently that his mouth was slightly open, like he’d forgotten his jaw had dropped, and I could see the little gears in his head, whirring and whirring!

And it was so amazing to see that effect I was having on him, that I paused for just a moment.

Oh nobody noticed it! And I quickly regained my train of thought, and continued on, but I kept watching him.

Watching him, watching me and the slides on the powerpoint presentation and I just thought to myself, Subhan Allah, I get paid for this!!!

Life is good!

Oh, on another note, the CBC piece came out. Probably close to two hours of filmed footage distilled into 2 minutes and 19 seconds, I think.

http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/Arts+and+Entertainment/ID/2417448444/

I think they did a wonderful job!