This week is my church’s big local outreach thingy, and I’ve been doing something every day since Wednesday. Tonight was one of the most fun activities: a free carnival for a low income area in our neighborhood. It was a blast. Little kids are always darling, and for the second year running I’ve helped out with the temporary tattoo booth. The reactions are always priceless. One little boy was in his daddy’s arms while I gave him his dinosaur tattoo, and his dad asked “Does it hurt?” I guess the little guy was convinced he was getting a real tattoo like the ones his daddy had, so he answered, “Yeah.” Both the kid’s father and I thought this was hilarious. The water might have been cold, but with today’s temperatures that would’ve felt fairly nice. Some of the little tikes need to be held by their parents, or automatically lean away from the cold sponge (thus initiating a game of lean-and-follow-for-thirty-seconds), and some of them just stick their hand out like regular little princesses. One little girl said “No” to everything, but her mother explained that she said “No” regardless of whether or not she wanted something, and in the end she was very happy with her tattoo. The best moment, however, was when a girl in a pink shirt came up with her mom, and my coworker and I immediately began offering different girly tattoos like butterflies, flowers and hearts. No dice. Then the mother said “Honey, they just see a little girl, not a tomboy.” We offered her frogs and bugs instead and we had a hit.
Back to my first comment: after we had finished baking in the sun, my mom and I headed to Graeters for a treat that we’d been planning. Mom had some left on an old gift card and wanted to get rid of that first. Turned out that her card covered it all, so now we get to go back sometime and I get to do the treating. Ah… ice cream….
