puppets and small children make me feel better ... but only for a short period of time

today i did a story time, which i was dreading because i felt it would be awful to face a group of 5 year-olds knowing that i am now nubian-godless. but actually it was quite fun.
here's what i did:
i opened up with introducing the children to my new friend Mouse, who is not a real mouse, but a puppet of a mouse. i explained to them that Mouse is very shy and that they need to say "good morning to him." which they then did. then Mouse helped me go through the rules of story time. he wiggled his arms to show the kids that they should wiggle their arms now while they had a chance (there is NO wiggling during storytime). then he strethed his ears and the kids stretched their ears so that their ears were ready for listening. then Mouse put his hand in front of his mouth to signal that it was time to be quiet. what a good mouse he is.
then i read the following books:
mouse paint: starring some of mouse's friends who fall into jars of paint and then mix up the colors to make new colors. the kids enjoyed guessing what the colors the mixed up paint would make.
then we read brown bear brown bear what do you see, and the kids guess which animals brown bear would see. usually they got them wrong, but i was very supportive of them and didn't say anything like "hey stupid kids don't you know the brown bear sees a red bird?" i was on my best behavior.
then we took a little break for stretching and played "open, shut them." a little girl was nice enough to tell me that i was actually playing the game wrong and she explained the correct procedure for open shut them, so then we played a modified version.
then we read: in the tall tall grass, which they also enjoyed but there was no audience participation
finally we read go away big green monster, which was a real hit. i read it twice. once using the book, and the second time using this puppet that has removeable pieces so the kids instructed me on which pieces to place on the monster and which pieces to take away. it was really cool.
then we made monster hats, shown above. and as the kids were leaving proudly sporting the monster hats that they had made ... i felt good. i felt good about being a librarian and helping kids in the hood and for a brief moment i forgot about the nubian god.
but that brief moment is over.