How to Cheer Up Kids Like a Boss

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Talie is back with her most adorable Bucket List post EVER. —Sparkitors

I've been in Miami! As much as I would love to say that I was living la vida loca whilst in Florida, my time was mostly spent playing with and getting attacked by my 8-year-old cousin.

Due to the fact that I was there practically FOREVER, I couldn’t do anything on the Bucket List. I arrived home in a slight exhaustion-induced frenzy because I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING off the bucket list and was totally planning to.

What was I gonna do?

Despite my inner turmoil, I reluctantly made my way to work on Thursday. Upon arrival at my boss’s house, I found one of the kiddies with an unfortunate-looking black eye. She was pretty down and informed me that she got the black eye by running into some random kid, and her parents let her stay home from school because of it.

OF COURSE I felt bad for her. I mean, here was this adorable little girl sporting an oozing black eye (I KID YOU NOT, it was oozing). But you see, my first thought wasn’t “Oh, poor little girl” (BUT IT WAS MY SECOND THOUGHT). My first thought was “Here’s a depressed child who needs me to bring joy into her life! THAT’S ON THE BUCKET LIST!!”

This brings me to the completion of Number 33: Bring joy to a sad child.

I promptly sped upstairs to find my boss working in her studio (she has this HUGE online scrapbooking website, so she practically lives in her studio) and tried to calmly asked her how she was doing and how work was going. And I say “tried to” because a genius plan was brewing in my mind of how to cheer the kid up.

I commented on how her little girl (let’s call her Blondie) was home from school and that she desperately needed some joy in her life. So as I gave her ideas of what we could do, I managed to subtly slip in the idea of going to see The Lorax. It was so subtle. I was so proud of myself. I also managed to say (subtly, of course) “I think there’s a show at 1:20.” How did I know this, you may ask? Because I looked the times up beforehand to prepare myself. BE PREPARED (from the Lion King, thank you very much).

My boss agreed, and I had to restrain myself from doing my celebratory full-body heave. I proceeded to get the Blondie and whisk her off to grab lunch. The ride was full of singing songs, telling stories and discussing our hopes and dreams. It was glorious. When we arrived at Wendy’s to get her lunch, Blondie asked “Ms. Talie, can we have a picnic outside the movie theater?” And I said “YES, YES WE CAN BLONDIE.” Because that idea was so beautiful that I couldn’t contain my excitement.

Whilst picnicking outside the movie theater, Blondie informed me that she’d like to be a video game designer.  After we finished eating, we proceeded to spin around on the street light in a Singing in the Rain-like manner. By the time we were too dizzy to continue, it was time to go into the movie theater. We got ridiculously excited when we first walked in because the entire theater was empty and we were planning on jumping all over the seats. Then, unfortunately, a mom and her kid walked in, so those plans were thwarted.

But it was okay, because pretty soon it was time to see The Lorax. It was adorable: we cried, we laughed, we peed our pants… obviously it created a range of emotions within us. In fact, so many emotions were swelling within Blondie’s body that, after the movie, she ran around the whole theater like some crazy posessed child.

It was a spectacularly beautiful day. Seriously, guys, this was definitely one of my favorite Bucket List completions EVER. It was just that amazing.

I got something done off the bucket list! Yay!

I still can’t really play the ukulele due to the fact that my finger’s still healing and stuff… but I’m counting the days until my ukulele and I can be gloriously reunited. Hopefully it won’t be too long…

Ooh ANDD I’m almost done with the play! As in “one more scene to write” kind of done. Booyah.

Talie :)

Doesn't this just make you go "AWWW"? Have you ever cheered up a sad kid?

Related Post: Blogging My Bucket List