A child's small discoveries.

The other day, at the kitchen table, my daughter was sitting down and drawing. She had a pencil-like device which held a crayon like tip. The rest of the pen's length was clear and hollow inside, containing plastic and crayon tips of different colors.

My daughter said to me, "It used to be red." And she seemed confused about why the color was different. Well, I don't know how the pen's tips got changed from red to black if she didn't do it, but I showed her how it works.

"You pull on this plastic part here.. and the tip in the front comes out. Then you bring it around to the back and push it in here. That moves the next color forward."

Her little face lit up. She had me show her this a couple of times and then she was nice and happy coloring and switching colors freely. It somehow gave me a disproportionate degree of satisfaction to have shown her something new and watch her express such delight in it.

So, I guess the guy (or gal) who invented that little device was pretty sharp after all. As a kid, I'd seen that kind of a drawing device before, but never thought of it as special. But, watching my daughter delight in it, I figure maybe I underestimate the little invention.

For me, sometimes parenting is like that. Small moments of wonder, for whatever trivial reason, where you wish you could just continue living in that moment for awhile longer. In this example, it was watching my daughter delight in the discovery of a new tool for her art.

Do you ever find yourself just watching your child play and smiling in some manner that the rest of the world might not understand?