Top 5 Things I Love About Kids

This post is linking up with Kate Takes 5's Listography.
What are your favorite things about kids?


Here are mine:

1. Excitement

Whether it's a trip to the beach, a playdate with a friend or raisin toast for breakfast, kids feel and show excitement in a way that's infectious - or at least entertaining. Sometimes I think they live their lives in a state of pent-up excitement which is just waiting for something to let it out. I'm not sure what age this disappears but I sense between 8 and 12 or so (depending on how exciting the exciting thing is).
Even now some things that used to cause my kids immense excitement are now completely passe. But it's funny when they are trying to act too-cool-for-school and then forget themselves at the prospect of an ice-cream or a playdate and run squealing with glee in happy circles again.

2. Memories

I'm not really stealing this one from Kate (who lists it in hers) because I remark on this all the time. It's gobsmackingly amazing to me how far back kids can remember. I've noticed a rough benchmark that little kids can remember back 2 years. They often amazed me at four and five by relating back events in fine detail which happened when they were two. Interestingly now they are six they seem to remember back to when they were three or so, but have lost memories of some of the events they used to talk about, which happened at two or three. I guess as we grow our memories condense, and of course the older you get the more there is to remember, so some of it is going to get lost.

3. Invention

It can be new words (M. still says "pokypine" for porcupine and "glue-tack" for Blu-Tack), crafts (making the Loch Ness Monster out of archive boxes), new tastes (peanut butter and Vegemite sandwiches - eugh!) or elaborate fantasy sequences in their games (my cousin says kids take longer to set up games than to play them). Kids are fountains of invention.  I also love seeing them learn new things and incorporate them into their speech, games and art, creating new twists on it all along the way.

4. Affection

Young kids are often so affectionate. As babies I had one (A.) very cuddly and affectionate and one (M.) less so, but as they got older it was (and is) often M. who was clambering all over me or clinging to my legs or back as I tried to go about my daily business. From a baby A. used to clasp my face in her hands and smile, and as a baby and toddler would want to go to sleep with one hand flat on my face or rubbing my cheek with her hand. Even now when she cuddles into me she will do it sometimes.

M. had to learn affection - I still remember her as a toddler giving my cheek an experimental kiss in a way that suggested she was thinking "I believe this is what one does to please one's mother and yet I fail to understand the appeal." She went through a rather long phase where her method of showing affection was to hit or push, and was quite resistant to kisses and cuddles.
Now she is very affectionate especially at night-time, but she will still often duck or shrink away from a kiss.

But if I or their Dad says "Kiss and Cuddle..." they will both throw themselves at us, arms round our necks and squeezing tight, which is more than catnip for parents - it's what we live for!

5. Art

I love, love, LOVE children's art. Whether it's Aelita Andre or the gifted child in the art class whose work makes your jaw drop or the gleeful scribblings of any child with a box of crayons, it's all glorious. There is wonder, colour and movement in children's art and somehow every child, at some point, manages to turn out a mini masterpiece.

What are your favorite things about kids?

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