Note to self -- Don't feed a toilet-training toddler a Nutella sandwich. Particularly if she, like so many three-year-olds is naked. One would think that you could reliably consider the brown smudges to differentiate at about the child's equator, but I know she left the table with a smudge of Nutella on her ankle and I'm not sure the smudge around her eyebrow was there when she left, announcing loudly "I've got to go POOOOOOPY."

She usually gets it right. It's the wiping part that doesn't always work, and sometimes it goes very wrong. The juxtaposition of Nutella and a pooptastrophe was something I hadn't foreseen. She always hollers from the bathroom "Mommy! I want you to watch meeee!" And often I will sit with her as she does her business. It's a delightful time to chat and hug and do nose kissies as I sit on the footstool before her little throne. This time however, her baby sister was in the high chair and since the little one figured out how to turn around and stand up, it wasn't prudent to go watch the three-year-old.

She came back, naked and smudged with brown stuff and I knew it wasn't all Nutella. But she was grinning that grin that contains all the sunshine in the universe, blissfully unaware that there was anything wrong. She was my child, beaming at me with delight and love and a soon to be disappointed desire to sit on my lap. I vacillated between being a bit grossed out and laughing out loud. Laughing won.

I've thought of her like that so often. How that's really how life presents itself to us. It's the uncontainable bliss of a child. It's the gift from GOD / THE UNIVERSE / whatever the heck you call the big unknown we're all connected to. But sometimes there's chocolatey goodness and sometimes there's something that stinks. And so often we lose sight of the DELIGHT that is ours in every moment. We lose sight of the JOY that is our birthright as spiritual beings having a human experience. Even if all you're experiencing is a sweet confection, there is still more delight under that. And if you're experiencing a little of life's crap, I can promise you, you can get rid of it very easily by focusing on the delight beneath.

If you've ever given a three year old a shower while fending off a crawling baby, you'll know there are suds and wiggles and giggles, and you'll all wind up wet, but with the arms of a child around my neck, and a tiny one pulling up to stand against my leg, life couldn't be better no matter what it's smeared with.

Cheetas and Dragonfairies

I took my three kids to the National Zoo and was pointing out all the interesting animals and exhibits. I came upon the enclosure marked “Cheetah” only to discover that there were none to be seen. As I was scanning the enclosure looking for the cheetah, the children looked into the enclosure and found that there was a small pond immediately on the other side of the fence. There were frogs in the pond, plenty of them! There were goldfish in the pond. There was a dragonfly that flitted from reed to reed. At the end of the day, with all the other exhibits they saw, the children actually spent the most amount of time at the “Cheetah” enclosure enjoying what WAS there without looking for what should have been, but wasn’t. They delighted in each new frog that was discovered. They enjoyed watching the fish swim about. The dragonflies became fairies about which they made up stories as they walked to the next exhibit. I found myself wondering how often I spent more time looking for the "Cheetah" when the frogs, fish, and dragonflies were there for my enjoyment. I looked in the rear view mirror – trained on my now-sleeping kids, not traffic – and wondered how often I looked for the Cheetah when it came to them. What were all the things a five year old girl should be? A three year old? A husband? A marriage? In particular I wondered about my darling one year old daughter who has Down Syndrome. I thought that perhaps the cheetah would have been impressive, but from now on, I was going to look for thing that weren't on the lable and enjoy frogs, fish, and dragonfairies.

Evelyn James,
Parenting Coach :-)