I'm watching my 3 year old, Zilla, out the front window yesterday afternoon.  She's singing and dancing in the front yard, playing with leaves.  I can see her picking up a leaf, turning it around examining it, talking to it, and then after she decides whether it meets her criteria or not she either places it in her other hand to hang onto or drops it back on the ground.
This goes on for awhile, until she has a good dozen leaves in her hand of various shades of yellow and green.  Then she sits down and starts arranging them.  First flipping them all so that all the stems are facing one way and then turning and twisting until she gets the arrangement she likes.
Then she comes skipping in the house and announces she brought me a bouquet of leaves!  She's so proud!  (And she should be, she worked hard on this.)
Well, I'm thinking to myself what am I going to do with a bunch of dead, crunchy leaves?  They aren't even colorful or pretty!
She's waiting expectantly for my reaction, which of course I give enthusiastically and make my way to the hall closet for a vase fitting of such a magnificent bouquet.

Lessons learned:
Everything is what we make of it.
We need to make the best of everything and every situation.
Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.
Have fun, no matter what you're doing.
Give.
Receive.
Be open to new ideas.  (I didn't really think dead leaves needed water, but Zilla did.)
Play.  Imagine.
Take the time to watch and enjoy.
Try new things.  (She thought the bouquet should be placed for display in our main bathroom.  I thought            otherwise.  She moved it from my location to hers when I wasn't looking.  My next trip to the bathroom, I saw the vase - and guess what?  It actually looked good, like we purposely decorated for fall in there.  Now of course I told her they looked nice, but let's not go overboard here or I'd have vases of leaves all over my house!)

I'm sure there are more, but if you'll excuse me - I've got a child to enjoy!

 

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