Kids

I’ve always been a super-fan of something. When I find something that I love, I tend to jump on the bandwagon and become infatuated. It happened with “Full House.” It happened with Pogs and snap bracelets. It happened with Elijah Wood (have you seen “The War”?). It happened with “Harry Potter” and “Lord of the…

It is 2003. I am at a Seattle coffee shop with the two boys I used to nanny for, then 3 and 5; I am ordering them hot chocolates. We find a Magic 8 ball by the cash register. Annie: Oh, you guys! Check this out – you shake it and ask it a question,…

“God is stronger than war.” – Micah Parsons, age 4

This is my nephew Micah. He is 4. He is one of my favorite humans on the planet, tied only with his little brother Tyler. Micah has always been advanced when it comes to speech – he has a large vocabulary, and is not afraid to use it. Recently, during a game of Candyland, he…

Yesterday marked the release of the long-awaited, long-anticipated fourth chapter in the “Indiana Jones” saga. I probably won’t see it. Not that I have anything against the movie – it’s just that I haven’t been to a movie in months, and haven’t really had the desire. Have movies lost their magic for me? Maybe so….

From 2002 until 2005, I was Annie the Nanny for two little boys in Seattle. The first year was a full-time job, and the next two were part-time as I finished school. These little guys were my funny companions, my paper airplane playmates, the reason that I wanted to pull my hair out and the…

When I graduated from college, I had a party. I didn’t really expect it, but people brought me presents. Let this be a lesson to all of you slackers out there: don’t quit, because in the end, YOU TOO could be the recipient of a ceramic candle holder in the shape of a flip-flop. Actually,…

This weekend, I talked to a 7-year old girl who had recently lost her first tooth. A gap in her grin, Claire told me that no, it didn’t hurt when the tooth fell out. Something about the momentous occasion that losing your first tooth ever is took me back to my own experience of the…

Once, I was known far and wide as being Annie the Nanny. Annie the GOOD Nanny. Annie the Nanny who could handle anything that came her way, tirelessly cycling through all of the things one does with kids: play, feed, change, wash, play, read, sing, play, love. There was no problem I could not settle,…

Last night, I attended a 5th-8th grade volleyball showdown, held in the gym of a local church. The contenders? The Christian Schoolers (the Knights) vs. the Homeschoolers (the Flames). I was there in support of my friend Kellyn, who was celebrating her 11th birthday on the volleyball court as one of the Knights. Technically, it…