Monday, July 8, 2013

The Optimism of a Child

Today was Secundus' 5th Birthday Party-her first ever "friends" party. 
I passed out the invitations almost a month ago and the only RSVP's I received were "No."  I had 9 kids on my list that I never heard from at all.  I can't judge too harshly because I am horrible at RSVPing.  But even so, I was stressing out about not knowing how many kids were going to come.  Mostly I was anxious that no one would come and then I would have a disappointed kid on my hands plus all that hard work gone to waste. 

In the end, only two friends came.  Add in Secundus and her siblings and that means we had five party-ers, which is actually a pretty good number.  But I was still so focused on how depressing it was that more kids couldn't be here. 

But then I stopped my moping long enough to listen to the laughing and joy that was coming from those five kids.  I even heard Secundus describe her party as "fantastic" and exclaim, "This is the best party ever!"

My little girl wasn't concerned with how many of her friends weren't here.  She didn't give a second thought to having "only" two birthday presents.  She didn't even care that we did it at home rather than going to a fancy, expensive, super fun party place.  And she believed that her goody bags in plain brown paper lunch sacks were the coolest.  She was focused on how much fun she was having with two awesome friends, playing fun games that she herself proudly helped plan.

If only more adults had the optimism of children, the world would certainly be a better place. 

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