I recently had a huge honour bestowed upon me. Six’s kindergarten class was doing a unit on people who work in the community, and her very gracious teacher asked if I would like to come in and speak about writing for the newspaper. Wow. I have to say in all my years working at all my jobs I never thought I would have one that might qualify as interesting to 26 small children. And I still wasn’t sure I had that kind of prestige. They’d already been visited by a fireman. Coolest job ever. At least, that’s what I thought. Until Six came home one day and told me about the ‘bat man’ that had come that day. Yes, an actual bat man. Except, he didn’t waste his day chasing around boring bad guys wearing too much make-up. This bat man worked with real, live bats. Studying them, building them houses, dealing with something called the ‘white citizen’, which is apparently a disease bats get. It’s very serious. Six informed me of all this for days after the presentation. She showed me her loot bag, which contained all kinds of cool bat paraphernalia. Apparently he even brought some shirts. What was I up against? How on earth can a simple newspaper lady who writes about folding laundry compete with mysterious nocturnal creatures who have fur and can fly?! I asked Six what she thought I could do to be more interesting to her classmates. “I don’t know Mommy. The bat guy was really good. Did I tell you about the white citizen?” Yes. Okay, so I could tell she had already accepted my defeat. Well, I wasn’t going down without a fight. My gracious colleagues at The Free Press office agreed to have the whole class in for a tour. Field trip. That’s got to be worth something. I baked cookies with chocolate chips AND M&M’s. I picked through my 80-some columns, looking for something the kids might find slightly cool. Unfortunately I didn’t have one on the white citizen, but I did have one about frogs and one about peeing your pants. I grabbed those. And then I took a deep breath, and went for it. The kids were great. They listened to the stories and then regaled me with their own pants and bed-wetting incidences. The ladies at the office were awesome. They even brought in a dog. The cookies were a hit. Afterwards I ran into one of the moms, who told me her son loved the newspaper trip. Yes! But this was the best part – as I sat at the front of the class reading my stories about her, Six got to sit beside me. Her little face was beaming with pride. Best. Day. Ever.

The Free Press