Lessons from a four year old

I got to have dinner at the farm tonight and it was wonderful. It's amazing where a 25 minute drive can take you. When we arrived Scott's nieces were running and playing in the pasture, the older of the two, pretending she was a horse eating the grass, "chomp, chomp, chomp, yum!"
She's normally a bit shy at family gatherings, being the only child amongst 20 adults I really can't blame her, I was the same exact way. So usually I just hang back until everyone has bombarded her with hugs and kisses and she is able to adjust. But tonight see came alive in a whole new way. We played in the backyard, wrote our names in the pollen covered slide, told jokes in the hammock, and best of all made chocolate cupcakes with orange icing and red sprinkles (mom and I most of the icing while we drank our wine). Aside from the fact that she is most intelligent, mature, amazing four year old I have met (no offense to the other four year olds out there, but really, she is) tonight she reminded the importance of two things: 1. being concise 2. being silly.

Lesson 1. being concise. She asked me if I knew what a pattern was. I said yes, but why don't you tell me what it is. She said it is when you have two or three things and they repeat. Short. concise. to the point. If I tried to define what a pattern was I would have gotten myself lost in some long explaination about indian mosaics, and the scales of a lizard before finally reaching a simplified, bare bone, back to the basics answer. And I would normally justify this by saying, "I majored in English" but really? shouldn't I know the value of a word and use them accurately, intentionally and appropriately? But, nooooo I feel the need to use three synonyms for the sake of really driving my point home, making sure that you and I are both absolutely certain that you and I know exactly what I am saying and that I have the ability to say it in lots of words. Isn't that what I hated about a majority of the required journal articles put before me in school? They were so freakin' repetitive and wordy, and for what? To squeak in a few extra vocabulary words?! Hence, my really long explaination about keeping it concise. Maybe I'll get it right next time.

Lesson 2: Be silly. I have been trying to create my own "Narnia" "Neverland" I want a dreamworld of my own. I want to imagine how the world could be different. I want to use my writting and drawing skills to create a place that is beautiful, a place full of hope, a place that isn't as complicated as it is here as a means of conveying lessons for the living. But I approach the assignment with such a serious dispositon. It's fun to tell jokes. It's fun to be silly. It's fun to giggle. And so, on that note: What's black and white and red all over? (Hint: It's not a newspaper)

It's a zebra that tripped over a can of red paint.