Children are miniature addicts, and their drug is simply 'Living'. Every day is an impossible, invincible high, peppered with occasional intermittent moments of tantrumous* lows. Some study somewhere done by someone** reckons that children laugh over three hundred times a day, whereas us gloomy adults only manage just under twenty.
I reckon a couple of kids let me borrow a laugh or two, today.
While doing the weekly shop this morning, I got a glimpse into someone else's life- the life of a parent of two little girls. They were about four and six years old- the oldest couldn't have been any older than seven. In any case, they were both at that stage of life where you have bundles of energy, a limitless imagination and where the world is your own personal playground.
The two girls were jumping around like grasshoppers and chattering non-stop, punctuating their animated conversation with plenty of sound effects. I glanced up at the dad, who was pushing the trolley, and had to stifle a sympathetic smile: he had bags under his reddened eyes, a slumping posture and a general Could-Have-Used-A-Few-Weeks'-Worth-Of-Sleep aura about him. Still, he'd automatically snap to attention if one of the bouncing girls was about to ricochet into the TV displays, or if one of them asked a genuine question (because sometimes children ask all sorts of things when it's clear they don't really care what then answer is- you'll answer them and they'll already be off like a rubber ball). So as exhausted parents of two young children go, he was pretty much as on the ball as you can get.
Just after he managed to deflect a potentially expensive bounce towards the electronics section, I heard him try to distract the girls by engaging them in proper conversation.
"Mummy said we need to get -x-, should we get it now? I think we should. Can you tell me which aisle you think it's down?"
There was a sudden, thoughtful silence. Then I heard one of the girls announce:
"I have decided that I want to be a feather."
And which much 'Wheeee!'-ing and 'Yaaaaaaay!'-ing the girls bounced off again.
Nice try Dad-Of-Two, but you just can't reason with these life addicts.
~Fin~
*When life hands you a situation that can't be summed up in one word... make a new one?
**Found on the internet and therefore completely irrefutable, of course...
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