Glad

This morning after we'd had our bath, I was attempting to get dressed and Avery was perched on my bed, waiting for her turn. As I surveyed my options Avery's little arm flew up, index finger pointed sharply at my closet. "Dat," she said.

She has learned that simply pointing at something and uttering oh so cutely, "dat!" will usually get me to drop anything and take her to whatever "dat" might be. And so I did. We started at one end of the closet and she excitedly grabbed each one of Trav's colorful plaid work shirts. Then she'd point at something else, "dat!" and we'd switch over to my brightly colored skirts which she'd carefully touch.

Silky skirt, rough wool coat, back to silky, back to rough, over to soft sweaters, back to hot pink skirt. Look at me...look at the clothes. Touch buttons, pull drawstrings, squeeze this, tug that.

And after about five minutes she was satisfied with the contents of our closet and switched her attention to a pair of lint removers that were stuck together on the floor, and crawled off to see about them.

Isn't it marvelous that encouraging creativity in children doesn't always have to involve elaborate paint and marker sets, or trips to museums. Sometimes it can happen just as satisfactorily at 8 am, half naked, on the floor of your closet.

And so I tell Avery, "Shh...this can just be our secret",

because we really do feel bad that dad has to be at work all day, while we get to be home having all this fun.

And boy am I grateful.