Mom: Are you picking your nose?  Kid: No, I’m scratching a bug bite that’s in my nose.

Why can’t I be that clever?

I’m visiting some family in Kansas, and I’m glad that I like them so much because there’s really no other reason to visit Kansas.  For real.  I asked my cousin what there is to do around here, and she said, “We do have a museum about our varieties of prairie grasses.”  I blankly stared at her after she said this.  Was she joking?  Nope, not joking.  Oh boy.

When you’re hanging out with five kids aged eight and under, you really don’t need activities (especially prairie grass museums).  They say quite enough to keep you entertained.  Yesterday we played in the backyard and tried to make a pile of leaves, but my cousin doesn’t have a rake.  This conversation ensued:

C (six years old): Hazel, do you have a crake?  (note: he calls a rake a “crake.”  I don’t pretend to know why).

Me: Yes, I do, but it’s back at my house in Michigan.

C: Can you go get it?

Me: Um, no.  I would have to get on another airplane.

C: Just take our car!

Me: I wouldn’t be back for another day!  Sorry dude, I can’t go get it.

C: *sulking* You really should have thought about bringing your crake while you were packing.

Now that I think of it, I have never seen anyone with a rake on an airplane.  There is no way that’s legal.  I wonder if anyone has ever attempted it.

Kids are so much fun.  I submit that they’re the best and worst possible thing for mental health.  When an eight year old hears you walk in late at night, and she has to run out of bed and sprint across the kitchen to give you a hug goodnight and say she loves you…well, there’s not a lot that’s better than that.  I’ve heard that having your own kids is not always so awesome, though, so maybe it’s good that I’m just visiting (even though I didn’t bring my crake).