I try to notice and find happiness in the small things. Sometimes it is easy, sometimes it is easier to overlook the little joys and only see the little misfortunes. And sometimes there is a small small piece of beauty that shines stronger than the midday sun on a hot summer’s day.
Lately, I have felt like we have half of the kindergarten grounds in our house. Every day when my son comes home, I discover a big pile of sand in his shoes. In his bag there are twigs and leaves and acorns. And in his pockets – I almost do not want to think about what is in his pockets. The kindergarten kids have clothing called smocks, a vest-style version for summer and a long armed garment for winter. The children wears it over their normal cloths to protect them from dirt and paint and all other things small children play with. Before washing my son’s smocks I always make sure to turn the pockets inside out and sand and stones and soil and unrecognizable objects fall out. Or almost always I should say – once I forgot the pockets and had to spend the whole evening when our son had gone to bed taking care of the little catastrophe the unemptied pockets left behind. I hope I will not repeat this any time soon.
Last week at the kindergarten we went to try out size for the kindergarten uniforms that our son will use next school year. For him the uniform so far has been two pink smocks and a pink hat so he was very excited to finally be able to wear the blue cap and uniform that the older kids have been wearing. Next year the smock will be yellow, and our son was so happy to try it on as well. I too, was happy (actually ten times more happy than our son I think). The head teacher showed me the pockets of the yellow smocks and pointed to the mesh fabric in the bottom of the pockets. She understood by my joyful reaction that I was very much looking forward to less sand and dirt coming home in the afternoons, and we could share the trouble caused by washing pink smocks with unemptied pockets.
On the way home I could not stop thinking about how it was quite some time since I was this happy and excited about such a small detail in the fabric of life.
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