Simple Pleasures

Just why are little kids so good at the important things in life?  And how do we lose sight of those things when life gets busy and complicated?  Pure joy comes to the young with the simplest of pleasures while we adults all too often trudge through the day without taking joy in much of anything.

Last Friday I had the pleasure of working with my favorite first grade class.  My day began with lending assistance to a little girl as she added “fresh” pond water she had brought from home to the tadpole habitat on the counter.  Of course all of the other students had to observe the little creatures before they themselves got settled in for the day.  Two little girls with the same name soon came skipping excitedly over to me to announce that they had named one of the tadpoles.  I was led by the hand over to the jar so they could introduce me to Chunky Monkey Funky (yes, in that order, for reasons I don’t understand), named so for his outstanding girth.

One of the best things about Friday in First Grade is you get to celebrate being awesome for a week by earning a Free Choice Time.  The young students live for these forty-five minutes of unstructured time.  Usually it means their choice of board games or creative time with all the tape, paper scraps, glue and markers they can use before time runs out.

One little fellow worked by himself on a top secret project.  With paper and markers and a huge grin, he bent over his desk, creating away.  After a few minutes he walked up to me with his head held high, shoulders thrown back and a bigger smile than ever.  He held out a gift.  “I made you a computer!” he said with pride.  It was beautiful.  I am now the proud owner of my very own laptop that even has my name on it (see below).

His beaming face was full of more jubilance than most adults feel in a week, I’m afraid.

The two girls with the same name appeared in front of me bouncing up and down.  “We want to write a book about the tadpole!!  It’s called Chunky Monkey Funky Goes to School!”  However, they were sad that we had run out of large construction paper for the cover.  I had some extra helpers in the room that day so I sent one of them with the two girls to the paper room. 

A few minutes later the two girls returned holding two bright blue sheets of 12 x 18 construction paper.  Their faces were about to split open with giant smiles.  They paraded around the room to show each one of their classmates, “Look at what we got!  We got to go to the PAPER ROOM!” as if they had found a pot of gold under a rainbow.  I heard one child respond, “I know, I got to go in there once.  It was SO fun!”

For one second, imagine being overjoyed by a trip to the supplies room in an elementary school.  Having this experience as the highlight of not only your day…but maybe your week, month or school year?

For the rest of the afternoon these two spent every spare minute working on their little story book.  And each time I looked over, I swear they were levitating above their desks with glee.  All it took was one tadpole and two pieces of fresh, perfect paper to bring absolute happiness to two little humans for at least a day.

Maybe we, as adults, can’t find pure bliss in something so regular, so simple.  As grown-ups, though, it is possible to find pleasure in simple things every day, but we may have to be more deliberate about it.  It could be as easy as listening to the birds sing while you indulge in your favorite steaming morning beverage.  Or you pause to focus on the movement from the corner of your eye and spy a tiny hummingbird sipping nectar from the flower basket.  We just have to choose to take time, each day, to seek out and enjoy the simple wonders, and pleasures, that surround us.