Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar?

It’s amazing what an hour with little children can do to your soul.

On Friday morning, I took a trip with Julie (one of my favorite professors at Wheaton and a huge supporter of the perfoming arts) to a nearby kindergarten called The Children’s Studio. Julie had mentioned in years past that she would spend her Friday mornings making music with kindergarteners, playing music and teaching them  songs (some of which she would also teach us college students in her World Music classes). As the semester began, I had been hoping to schedule a lunch date with Julie just to catch up about the summer and share new hopes for the year. The semester took a rocky start and it was just as hard for us to find an hour to get together. Friday came up as a good day for both of us and it just so happened that  she also had that lunch time tentatively blocked off for her kindergartners. Having always been interested in her work with the kids and really hoping to make service a priority at Wheaton this year, I asked if I could come along.

That hour I spent with those eight children was the highlight of my weekend. We sang (yes, my shy vocal chords get some practice!), made rhythms with our hands and feet, and danced around the room in a little parade. To help us learn everyone’s names, we even played Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar?, a game I had enjoyed so much when I was a little girl. Amazing how little games like these circle the world! And, oh, how they dance – bundles of energy just bouncing up and down in those sneakers that light up when they land on the ground. In a couple of the boys I also saw some serious potential for improvisation, capoiera and breakdancing.

Even in that short hour, it was beautiful to watch the children shed their layers to slowly reveal their brightness to us, a very different light than the light of preoccupied college students. I think I smiled that whole hour. And if my lips weren’t stretched into a smile, they were making room for my laughter.

(The lovely paintings in this post are by Kevin Peterson.)