The darndest things.

Kids these days. I love 'em.

I work at an elementary school in the summertime, and it makes my heart sing. The children are incredibly sweet, and their innocence continues to amaze me every single day. Love your job and you never have to work a day in your life, yeah? Every day without fail I have those moments where I see all of these kids and think to myself, "I couldn't have been this small in the third grade" or "Has it really been SEVEN YEARS since I was in elementary school?!"

In the immortal words of Nationwide Insurance: Life comes at you fast.

While I was pondering this a little bit at school, I was in charge of the third graders for an hour. Naturally, I did what I do best with an hour to kill....make the children craft. Mother's Day is Sunday, obviously, so a Mother's Day card was in order. As the boys and girls started to cut out the fragile paper circles that would soon transform into some kind of flower for the card, I walked around to see if anyone needed any help. I pulled up a chair next to a table of little girls, and we quickly got talking about the new puppies that had been born this morning and the birthday party of a girl in their class.

Suddenly, one of the girls looked at me and said, "Miss Emi, are you going to be here next year?"

I smiled and replied, "I really wish I could, hon, but I'm going to be gone next year!"

After much interrogation of why I had to leave and where I was going, I explained to them that I was going on a mission. One of the other group leaders these kids knew just left a few weeks ago, so I explained that I was doing the same thing as she did. The girl that asked the question got dead silent and looked at me with these huge eyes full of curiosity and wonder. As she opened her mouth to speak, I knew that there was some kind of Mormon myth that I may have to dispel, so I was equally as curious to hear what she had to say.

With a voice that half whispered her words, she stated in all seriousness this question:

"Miss Emi, are you a Moron?"

I can honestly say that I've never had to hold back a laugh as hard as I did in that second. I promptly told her that although I am indeed a moron, the word she was probably looking for was Mormon...and I was that too. I changed the subject to avoid much discussion about religion in the school, but I silently laughed for the entire rest of the day.

I am a moron. I know it, I live it, I love it.