My little girl is many things, one of which is a teacher to her mommy. I make an attempt to learn something from her even as I'm trying to teach her. A few weeks ago she gave me a doozy of a lesson. Kayleigh learned a new game from Grandpa Van Dyk when we were at the Holland State Park a month ago. Grandpa showed her how to bury things in the sand, namely, feet. She didn't seem to be watching when he taught her then, but she was paying attention. A few weeks later, I was sitting in the grass with feet in playground gravel, enjoying how my active little toddler was running around. Surprisingly, Kayleigh didn't want to be far from Mommy. So she was looking for entertainment nearby. She found it in burying Mommy's tennis shoes in the sand. Since I was wearing my newer Asics (the ones I'm still breaking in from Christmas as much of my third trimester was NOT spent running), I didn't really want my feet buried. As soon as she put the gravel on top of my laces, and turned for another load, I'd turn my foot and dump off the sand. At times it would appear that she noticed her lack of progress; other times she seemed to simply continue plowing away at the task. It was then that I learned my lesson ...
How often do I appear to be making little to no progress on a task? OFTEN ... the 6 loads of laundry that greet me every Monday take forever to diminish; the dishes piled high with baby bottles, sippy cups, and child-size utensils; everything seems to be a constantly revolving task ... Sometimes I get frustrated that it never seems to end ... but not my Kayleigh ... her task (much to my chagrin) gave her as much joy the first time as it did the 200th time (Yeah, I let her keep trying for quite a while ... what can I say? I wanted her tuckered out for bed!).
If we all could find such limitless joy in the mundane tasks that greet us each day ... I think our world would be full of a very different kind of people. ... I think I want to make that my goal, finding joy in all of the little tasks. :)
Here's my joyful child ... simply loving life ... even the things that are mundane :).
