"Who am I?" she asked.

So I have no idea who I am anymore. The Animalia got a birthday party invitation, a very special Elmo invitation for a 2nd birthday party for a kid that we love. And on the Elmo invitation it said that Elmo himself would make an appearance. And I got too excited. Animalia, I told her, and all she did was look for her Elmo puppet. Me, I started talking about how totally cool that was and I wondered what Animalia would do and it was going to be awesome, etc, etc.

Now I don't doubt that it'll be great but really. Who am I? I also think this when I'm doing storytime at work (so not me) and dancing and jumping and singing with the kids. When I do the Itsy Bitsy Spider with no sarcasm in my voice. When I don't automatically yell at kids for being loud or running around like animals. It's still crazy to me that kids actually like me, they did before I was even interested in the topic of them.

I guess Animalia has given me patience and more ability to be goofy but I still identify with people who don't have kids and don't plan to. The Nina told me, in a completely unrelated conversation, that I wasn't a Smug Parent. I'm glad of that. This new identity is still sometimes a little strange to me.