Louise Atkinson loves children. So much so that she runs a toy store in her local mall. And as toy stores do, her store attracts a lot of children (and their parents). From all over the mall children would come to the store and look in the windows at all the toys. That’s what inspired Louise. She told us about her inspiration. "I believe the most humorous and candid video clips come from children looking into an un-manned, fixed camera, that is mounted in a blatantly obvious recording position," she said. So to prove her point, she took the XCam2, stuck it in the window right in plain view, about the height of a normal kid, and projected the images onto one of the televisions in the store. And from there, she leaves the wireless cameras alone, waiting for some young child to open up to the camera.

"You wouldn’t believe what these children will do," she said. "Aside from the usual, making faces into the camera, they will sometimes get very creative." Louise told us, "There’s no end to what these kids can come up with to entertain us." For instance, she told us about a little girl who thought she’d practice her ballet right there in the mall, in front of a live audience, not just to the camera. One little boy wanted to show off a "big owie" that he got while sliding over first base during a little league game. "Of course this involved pulling his shirt way up over his head to do so," Louise said. "Which added to the humor because mom came running out of nowhere with all of her shopping bags to prevent any further embarrassment."

Like Louise said, most of the children have a pretty standard routine, which includes making faces into the camera, or spinning and jumping about, but there’s the occasional stand-out such as the ones she told us about. Those, she likes to hang on to, and share with the shopping customers. She takes the videos at the end of the day, and with the parent’s permission, edits the most hilarious moments together to run on another television she has set up in the store. That way a customer can watch the child live if they’re worth watching, or they can enjoy the best of "Kids do the Darndest Things."

"Sometimes entertainment can be so inexpensive," Louise told us. "All I needed was an XCam2 and any little child walking by."

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