There’s nothing like spending time with a toddler to remind you how extraordinary the seemingly ordinary things in life are when you see them through the eyes of a child. The other day, I was at the mall with my boys. We went to the restroom, and Dylan discovered what seemed to him to be the eighth wonder of the world – the hand dryer. We have encountered other hand dryers before, but those were the kind where you press a button and hold your hands under the nozzle. He thinks that those are interesting, but the kind that we discovered the other day was mind blowingly amazing. You insert your hands in the top, and the dryer turns on automatically. If you place a ball inside the trough where you stick your hands and then stick your hands in the top of the trough, the ball shoots out the side of the machine. Every time. Even if you do it twenty times, it will still come out the side on the twenty first time. What’s more, it is just as exciting the twenty first time as it was the first time.
Watching Dylan experience such delight from such a seemingly ordinary experience made me realize that one reason why many kids are generally happy most of the time is that they look at the things that they see with such awe and wonder. Things that adults might not even notice. Things like the robins hopping around in the yard, the one white rock in a pile of gray ones, the mist of water spraying from the place where the garden hose connects to the outdoor faucet.
What if I looked at things and saw them the way that he sees them? Would I experience that same wonder and delight? It’s worth a try. I’m going to stop and smell the roses – or put my hands in and out of the hand dryer – a little more often so that I might find out.