Appreciating the Small Things

My son has a collection of stuffed animals. He loves them so much and each of them has a name. There’s even a mommy and a daddy and babies. It’s so cute.

A few days ago, he brought me one of the babies. It had a tear on it’s leg and the inside stuffing was coming out. Sewing is not my specialty, but I have done my best in the past to mend some of my son’s clothing. He handed his baby over to me to fix him.

I asked him to set his baby on his desk. It sat there one night. Then another. It completely slipped my mind to fix it even though it was in plain sight.

The other day, my son brought it over to me before he went to bed. He asked me again if I could please fix it. I felt horrible. With everything going on, mom couldn’t even remember to fix her son’s stuffed animal. The look in his eyes was one of disappointment. I told him that I was sorry that I forgot and I would fix him tonight.

After he went to bed, I got out my sewing kit and fixed that small tear the best I could. I hid the baby behind my back and went into my son’s room. He looked at me, wondering what I as doing, and then I showed him his baby. The look on his face…well, it will be ingrained in my mind for some time. It was the look of pure, innocent happiness. One small thing made his day brighter.

You can learn a lot from kids. Sometimes, being a grown up isn’t fun. You can lose sight of those small things to the point where they don’t even make you smile anymore. For me, I get so hung up on the bad (stress, financial worries, etc.) that I forget about the good.

There are plenty of good, happy things if I allow myself to notice them and appreciate them.

Posted by Tricia on April 24, 2008 at 10:10 PM in Life Experiences | 6 Comments »
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Sherri responded:
Posted: April 24th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
I’m glad you had this great “small moment” with your son. I think we all need to clear our heads sometimes and make sure the good “little” things don’t pass us by.
My Crazy Debt responded:
Posted: April 25th, 2008 at 12:34 am
Awe, that’s so sweet.
elizabeth responded:
Posted: April 25th, 2008 at 2:07 am
Great story! I sure miss when my kids were that little and easy to please. One of the things I miss the most is being able to kiss away their owies.
Rachel @ Master Your Card responded:
Posted: April 25th, 2008 at 3:03 am
You are so right. Last weekend we took the children to the park and they loved feeding the ducks with stale crusts and watching the water. It made us realise that you do not have to spend money in order to have lots of fun and to have quality time iwth the children.
Mrs. Micah responded:
Posted: April 25th, 2008 at 10:03 am
After finishing an English degree last year, I’ve rediscovered one of the reasons I pursued it in the first place…my love of books. Unfortunately, studying and analysis and the like made it hard to read the books I was most interested in and sometimes made reading them more a chore than a pleasure. Now that I’m free of that, it’s becoming quite wonderful, like it was when I was younger.

It helps to lose yourself in a good book for just a few hours to get away from all the financial and other worries. I’d almost forgotten how good it is.
Alexander responded:
Posted: May 1st, 2008 at 11:28 pm
I sit here in front of my computer and, eventhough I have no kids of mine, I could imagine the whole scenerio and the look on your boys face on both occasions. Its amazing how the very little things in life we ignor affects us and the ones we love even without us knowing.

Great post! Good story telling skill too!!!