Part 2, Cute they are not

This is a continuation of my interaction with my new friends...

This story occured this morning, 9/12/11, as I left my apartment to go to work.

Meet Jamila and Leila--or Layla (sp?). Jamila is the one crouching down prepping herself with ammunition. 

I guess my first mistake was talking to them and acknowledging their presence...but how could I ignore them when they saw me come out of my apartment?

I asked where their parents where.

"They're coming today"

I tried to get clarification of what that meant but I still did not understand.

When I asked who was watching them, I got different answers...

"Everyone is watching us"

"Somebody is watching us"

Now, I don't know if "Somebody" is an actual name of a person or it meant an actual person was with them. Jamila also told me Leila is not her sister but her twin.

After a few minutes of interacting with them, I made sure to talk to them about some basic safety tips-- don't go following anyone into their car, don't go into someone's car, make sure adults are with you at all times....then I left to go to work.

I see the girls follow me to my car. I stopped and shooed them away. But they didn't stop. I walk with a faster pace and they followed my pace.

I got into my car and having learned from my first incident with them, quickly locked my car.

Jamila's look was priceless when she tried to open my car and found it locked.

So this is what she did instead...I waved back.  I couldn't help but laugh as I had foiled her plan.

I told them I had fun playing but I needed to leave for work. They just stood there. I thought I'd wait it out until they lost interest. But I was wrong. They became even more determined...

Jamila wanted to keep playing...my attempts to trick her like I did during our first encounter failed.

So she asked Leila to stand guard and "push my car" and make sure I couldn't leave. Layla obeyed.

She was not the commanding officer today I guess. Instead of her giving Jamila orders, it was now Jamila who was in charge.

Jamila ran back to the playground to get more sand. And along the way, constantly looking back and shouting reminding her sister what her job was.

Leila really gave everything she could pushing her hands onto my bumper.

When Jamila was out of earshot, I told Leila "hey, why don't you go get sand too?" She looked to where her sister was at first, then back to me, then back to her sister, and ran towards the playground.

Checking to make sure I wouldn't run over anyone, I sped out of my parking space. I almost hit a truck pulling in. He gave me a look and saw the girls and he smiled.

I caught Leila on my rear view mirror running after me. Boy, that girl is really fast!

Either I need to leave earlier for work or keep playing with the girls.

I wonder what my boss would say about my excuse for being late to work-- "two girls stood in front of my car and wouldn't let me leave..."

I think this is the reason why I decided not to teach Kindergarten. They'd run all over me!

I remember working at an after school program while I was in college. We had a project to do some footprint paintings on butcher paper. I thought how hard could that be?

When one of the kids asked if they could also paint their legs, I said Sure!

Turns out that was a big no-no.

The after school program director saw 10 kids painting their legs and called me into her office. She fired me on the spot for not being able to control the kids.