A True Gift

It is in the eyes of a child that you can experience a true excitement, curiosity, a true and honest joy, happiness a true amazement. As a we grow we seem to loose a piece of that genuine emotion. So today I was given this gift to see all those emotions in the eyes and face of my son. My mom I took the kids to the Desert Botanical Gardens to see the Butterfly exhibit. I was so excited to get him ready this morning and tell him all about our day, the entire ride over he was only talking about the butterflies that he was inevitably going to see. It wasn't until we got there that I realized that the things that we think that our kids will be so impressed with can be a minute piece of the gigantic picture, in the eyes of a child. Inside the butterfly exhibit there was a pond with goldfish, as we were pointing out the butterflies scattered all around us, Griffin kept wanting to look at the pond and the "fishies" and even asked if he could get in the pond. So I had to say to myself, that is really exciting for him even with hundreds of butterflies flying all around us.

Later on we found our way to these amazing sculptures that you could walk around and through and as Griffin was running through these, the happiness and excitement was expelling from every ounce of his body. You could see the intimidation of the first couple of steps as these sculptures were enormous, but then the giggles and light in his eyes were indescribable. However, the most excited part of his day came when an army helicopter flew over and he was beside himself, so excited, screaming "helicopter, helicopter mama."

So as we were driving away I asked him if he had fun and told me that he wanted to tell daddy all about the helicopter. I thought that the butterflies were amazing though. So today I learned a valuable lesson in living in the moment and letting my children help guide the way.

However, Griffin was impressed with our decision to stop for lunch and ice cream after our adventure...