Children offer unique perspective on world, work

Next week, this column will return to the hands of Joe Mc-Adoo, the original, and rightful, author of "The Rusty Saber." In the meantime, though, it's up to SBJ and this week specifically, me to share some thoughts on this page.

For the record, I have two monkeys, er, boys Brandon, who's 5, and Connor, who's 4. We recently had occasion to take them on a company-sponsored theater outing to Spring-field Little Theatre. "Annie" was playing, and this was our first excursion as a family to live theater.

I was very impressed with the quality of the show and the mu-sic. I was equally entertained, though, by the boys' reactions to the show.

Every time the lights would go down for a scene change or whatever it's officially called when they move things around and "change locations" on the stage Brandon would whisper, "Is it over?" He was tickled to learn that no, it was not.

About halfway through he said, "Hey! Those are real people, like me!" What can I say, he's a sharp kid. I expect that we'll visit another live stage performance soon, one reason being that "Annie" has provided ongoing entertainment at my house.

Picture this: My son Connor with a Russian-style fur hat which he says is Annie's hair singing "The sun'll come out tomorrow," in his jammies. And both boys love to use their Power Ranger, Ninja Turtle and other figurines to play out "fight scenes" by said action figures that they dub "Annie" and "Daddy Wart-ducks" when they see fit.

Except for the fact that I can't get "Warbucks" through their little heads, I think they followed the play fairly well, be-cause most of the "fight scenes" are about Daddy Warbucks saving Annie from some sort of villain (sometimes, "space people," sometimes, Emperor Zurg of "Toy Story" fame).

But they know that Annie and Daddy Warbucks belong together, so who am I to argue with their creative spins on the plot?

Don't children have a funny perception about the way the world works, though? For in-stance, ask my kids what I do, and they'll tell you that I work at "the ABC shop," derived from their understanding that what I do is sit at my desk and make letters all day long. Not a bad assessment, I suppose.

As far as money goes, I think that, in answer to the age-old parent-to-child question, "Do you think money grows on trees?" children most certainly do think that "Yes!" money does come from there. Often one of my little guys will ask for some outlandish and expensive item at the store.

If they've seen me put any sort of money into my billfold you know, change from the lady at McDonald's or change from the soda machine at work they absolutely cannot understand why I can't whip out that same money and pay for the "gotta have it" toy on sale for $49.99.

Financial misinterpretations aside, there's also the distance thing.

The other day, Brandon was talking to his Grandpa, my dad, who lives two hours away. We were headed to the post office to drop Grandpa's birthday present in the mail, so I told Brandon to tell Grandpa where we were going and that we'd call back later.

Unfortunately, at that mo-ment, Grandpa also was getting some things ready to mail and was planning to head for the post office, too.

Upon hearing this, Brandon became very excited because he thought he would get to see Grandpa when we dropped off the mail.

For the record, trying to ex-plain the mail system and the fact that you can't drive two hours' distance in two minutes to a 5-year-old who's two steps away from a full-blown fit is no picnic.

Kids are funny business. And, I suppose, they can be considered a type of business caring for them is work, and it does require funding.

Only instead of a paycheck, you get love, and bean art from preschool, sticky fingers on your shirt when you're already running late, a never-ending supply of questions to answer and sleepy good-night kisses from little ones who, on some level, think you hung the moon.

And that to borrow a line from some commercials is priceless. On that note, enjoy this week's paper. We here at the ABC shop have worked hard on it, with you in mind.

(Maria Hoover is Inside Business editor for the Springfield Business Journal.)