Pretty Little Moments

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So twice in the past week-ish, I have woken up to the same sound. Sounds kind of creepy, but it’s not I promise. In both incidents, it was well before I wanted to be awake that I was awoken and I was fairly immediately pleased.

The first of these encounters happened on the last day of my finals and the last thing I needed was to be awake before I had to be, and when I heard a strange ruckus downstairs, I was confused and annoyed for a couple minutes until I heard the telltale sound of a little kid. A one year old to be fairly precise, doing that “ah ah” noise. And I was like, there’s a baby in my house! Yay, I love babies! So I went downstairs not knowing why or how there was a baby in my house, but I was too excited about having a baby in my house (did I say that phrase enough?). So I rush down stairs and my dad’s friend is over and he has his little grandson who is toddling around my living room being mega-adorable. I was pretty glad to be awake, man. He was so sweet.

The second instance was this morning actually. I hadn’t gotten home until like midnight and right after the sun rose, basically, I heard outside my window people yelling. For a split second, I was highly irate until I realized it was little kids giggling. Then it was just infectious and I started smiling. There is something about little ones laughing that just makes me happy. I love hearing youthful, innocent happiness.

I tell these stories for two reasons, one because I just want to express how healing and utterly beautiful children’s happiness can be. And secondly, I think that it is so important to appreciate little moments like those. A lot of my happiest moments in life come from appreciating very small things; like hearing laughter in the morning instead of an alarm clock. Or taking a nature stroll and witnessing spectacular things (which I often write about in Escaping Suburbia). As the holidays come barreling towards us about to pass in the blink of an eye, take some time to enjoy little things and reflect on them. Cherish moments more than gifts (sorry, that was mushy).