Welcome to Livlife. Where I am living my life out loud, for all to read.

This is a great story. I have this feeling that Kelly will particularly enjoy this one.

 

So I am at work. And this boy, about 9, who is a regular user of my library, comes running up to the desk. "Have you seen Rohan?" is what he wanted to know.

 

I told him that I don't know who Rohan is.

"He's my friend." he said.

 

I told him that was great, but not all that helpful to me. So this boy goes on to describe Rohan to me, i.e. "8-years-old, blond hair, he has a blue shirt."

 

I said that I hadn't seen any blond 8-year-olds running through the library.

 

He looks at me, seriously and says, "oh, he wouldn't be running."

 

I started to chuckle and responded with, "okaaaay, I haven't seen any blond boys running, walking, skipping, dancing, hopping, prancing, or traipsing through the library at any point."

 

Then this boy started to chuckle because he understood what I meant and that he took me very literally.

 

I said, "got it?"

 

He said, "yep, except for that last one."

 

"Traipsing?"

 

"Yeah," he said "I don't know what that means. I guess it was close to the other words you used though?"

 

And he totally said it like a question. I told him if he didn' t know what it meant he should go and look it up.

 

After a moments pause he said, "okay, where's the dictionary?"

 

I pointed to it and off he went. In seconds, he was back asking me how to spell 'traipsing'. I spelled it for him, twice, and repeating it to himself, he went back to the dictionary.

 

In a few minutes, he came back and said he found it. I followed him over to the dictionary and he read me the definition from the book. I asked him if it makes sense and he smiled and said, "yeah, it's cool."  Then I told him he should try to use it in a sentence to someone, because it will make the new word easier to remember....

 

Lo and behold, about 10 minutes go by and he shows up at my desk. Next to him is a blond boy in a blue shirt. He says to me, "this is Rohan, I found him...and don't worry he wasn't traipsing around the library."

 

Go figure.

 

 It was a great moment. I was proud of him and told him so. Sometimes, kids are awesome.