One of my favorite extra curricular activities is people watching. Some of my favorite people to watch are children. Yes, that sounds really creepy but it’s not as bad as it sounds. Watching kids at play and in conversation with one another is hilarious. It is such a good reminder that we, as adults, take ourselves way too seriously.

At Yoforia (frozen yogurt bar) yesterday, I had to put down the book I was reading in order to devote my full attention to the whimsical conversation that a young boy and girl were having. It went like this:

Boy: (pointing to me sitting on a brick wall in the sun) Hey, let’s go over there and sit with her
Girl: Umm no. Who would want to go sit with her?? [I’m not going to lie, it hurt my ego a bit. Even if it was just a 6-year-old girl]
Boy: Okay. I’ll go dance on the wall by myself then. Hey dad, are strawberries chewy?

The father of the kids suddenly looked like he had been asked to solve the square root of 186,000 and then divide it by 5. He made brief eye contact with me and his expression was priceless. I could see the wheels in his head turning: I don’t know, are they chewy? No, they aren’t exactly chewy but they aren’t not chewy. Why does it matter? I have never had to think about strawberries this hard before. His answer to his son was a simple “yeah, they are kind of chewy, I guess.” The boy nodded, content with his dad’s response. To little boys, dad’s answers are not just opinions, they are universal truths.

I laughed out loud at the exchange between the two kids and their father. While sometimes kids can be exhausting, annoying, sticky, smelly, and wild, it has got to be worth it when they ask you questions that are so simple, they blow your mind. Kids make you think about things you could never dream of yourself. They see life from 3 feet off the ground, and with the most innocent eyes and hearts. They are brutally honest (ouch, little 6-year-old girl who dissed me to my face). They are open-minded. Not the “open-mindedness” that adults claim to have.Honey, I’m feeling open-minded tonight, I’ll eat chicken OR fish for dinner! Kids have REAL open-mindedness. They are open to all sorts of opinions and lifestyles. They are not capable of judgment.

If only adults could view the world and question life more like children, I think it would be a much happier (and humorous) place.