See Kids, See Kids Run Fourth Annual Kiwanis Family Day Is High-Energy Picnic For 1,000 Kids
Jesse Kelly-Woitas couldn’t stop moving Saturday.
He scratched a leg, did a hula hoop twist of his hips, ran in a circle. He rubbed an elbow. He lifted a leg, dropped it, bent both knees.
He jumped straight up - a 4-year-old not quite ready for waiting in lines.
He was lined up at a row of tires dangling from a tree in City Park, site of the fourth annual Kiwanis Family Day, a local celebration of national “week of the young child.” The yearly picnic, which began Saturday with a parade down Sherman Avenue, this year drew more than 1,000 Kootenai County kids.
Kelly-Woitas, of course, didn’t care about that. He just wanted a shot at tossing inflated balls through the tires.
“My turn!” he finally shouted, poking the girl in front of him.
“Huh-uh!” the girl said with a shove.
Who would have guessed he’d already had three tries?
“Uh-huh.”
“Huh-uh.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Huh-uh.”
A smaller boy slid past and grabbed the balls from a tired-looking Kiwanis volunteer.
“Hey!” came the surprised shout from Kelly-Woitas.
Scenes like these were repeated throughout the park as children - ages 3 to 8 - rode bicycles, watched clowns, played tug of war and tossed water balloons at mom and dad.
“It’s a celebration for kids,” said Kiwanis member Howard Martinson. “It’s about getting a little education, learning a little safety and having a little fun.”
Mostly, it seemed, the latter.
Some kids toured “the body,” crawling through a giant mouth and small intestine - cardboard boxes filled with strips of clear plastic - before landing at Kent Setty’s station: The respiratory system.
Setty, an American Cancer Society worker, coached the restless pack about mucous and the dangers of smoking. He then ushered them to a plastic tunnel where they nosed their way out through a giant nostril.
Little boogers, were they?
“Nah,” Setty said and exhaled. “Well, maybe some of ‘em.”
Megan Ward and Nicole Levinson, both 6, couldn’t get over the hairy double-humped camels wandering in a 10-foot-square pen.
A distracted Ward pointed to a pair of drooling camel lips popping from between the bars. She squealed.
“Look at them spit!”
Along the blacktop trail splitting the park, tiny Campbell Smith, not yet 4, crawled into the driver’s side of a parked Idaho State Police squad car.
Officer T.K. Huckabay leaned in the open door.
“You driving?” she asked.
“Yup,” Smith said, midget hands sliding around the locked steering wheel.
“How fast you going?”
Smith rubbed a palm against his cheek, leaving a piece of hot dog there. He splayed his fingers.
“Five miles an hour?”
“Yup,” he said.
Suddenly, driven by nothing, Smith leapt from the car. A hike of his shorts and he was gone, tearing through the grass to mom.
The officer shrugged, peeled a sticker shaped like a sheriff’s star off a roll of wax paper and patted it on another boy’s arm.
He beamed, and waited for Huckabay to look away. Then he ripped off a piece of the star and ate it.
“These kids are funny,” said J.D. Brandel, young Kootenai County marine deputy, after a morning of patiently hoisting tykes onto his boat for a tour. “They all talk about how big this engine is, but it’s because they’re so small, you know? They’re great.”
Got kids of his own?
A vigorous shake of the head.
“No way,” he said. “I’m waiting another five years. At least.”
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