Toddlers are Better People

     By this juncture anyone who was reading this blog has probably given up on me ever posting
again. It has been a crazy year: Papasaurusrex deployed, we had a surprise PCS move we had to plan and execute in two months (if you want more on that I am going to TRY to write it next week), after settling us in Papasaurusrex was off again for a while, and I am currently in the process of putting our life back together so he comes back to a home and not a disaster area. In the midst of all the adult chaos Cutes Patoots has learned to walk, run, climb, dance, and talk. We went from just a few simple words to her grabbing my face in both her precious little hands and asking if I was okay. Life for a toddler, like the rest of us, goes on and not a moment can be wasted, which brings us to today and the reason I dusted off my blog.
     Today we went to Balboa Park in San Diego for the Plumeria Festival. After we watched the hula dancers and looked at the different varieties of plumeria for sale we decided to take a stroll, me walking while pushing Cutes Patoots in her little pink car. It was such a beautiful southern California day and I really wanted to get some good pictures of Cutes for her daddy. The sun was shinning and people were everywhere. Kids darting back and forth, tents set up for face painting. I had decided to take Cutes over to the large fountain outside of the Ruben H. Fleet Science Center when I saw an older gentleman in a wheelchair coming down a sidewalk. People were avoiding his gaze, pulling their kids to the other side of road, doing anything they could to avoid drawing his notice and certainly to avoid risking having to interact with him. I was about to do the same thing when Cutes lifted her little hand and waved at him with a bright smile on her face. I watched as his face lit up before he waved back, as if that simple gesture was the most beautiful gift he had received in years. I could have quickly moved on and pretended not to notice. Instead we stopped and said a formal hello introducing ourselves. He honked the horn on his wheelchair and Cutes honked the horn on her car in response. We talked for a few minutes about nothing of import. I could tell he wasn't all there, not dangerous but some of his synapses aren't making the right connections, his speech a little slow and his ideas not always flowing very well. As we talked he told me he was looking for the Air and Space Museum and I pulled out my park map and showed him how to get there. Since we didn't need the map anymore I told him to keep it and circled his destination before giving it to him. It was a very pleasant exchange with Cutes Patoots piping in with her happy chirps and offerings of leaves and rocks she found particularly pretty.We were at the end of our exchange when he asked if he could shake Cutes Patoots' hand. That was when I  took the best photo of the day. His older hand with dirt around the nail beds holding her precious little hand that had waved to him in such beautiful innocence.

     This one image to me captured something profound, something I have continued to think about all afternoon and well into the evening, something I will share with you now. We as parents are always looking to the next stage. We can't wait for our toddler to start acting like a more reasonable human being. I mean come-on, yes means no but also yes, no means no but might mean yes. They are overly dramatic, they throw tantrums, throw food. There is no impulse control and let's not even talk about the mood swings. Seriously, they yell at us when there is poop in their bathtub. We didn't poop in their tub (at least I hope you didn't. I know in my case it was definitely her that pooped in the tub.) But there is something we don't think about that toddlers have that we lose as adults; innocence. We become jaded to the simple pleasures of life like a sprinkler on a hot summer day. While in our heads we know our actions have an impact on the world we don't stop to watch the ripples when we throw a rock into the pond. We no longer see people as people, but as threats we must avoid. I am just as guilty. It is only as a mother that I am beginning to see the difference a smile can make. It is such a simple gesture to wave your hand and greet a stranger, but to that stranger it can mean the world. What I would like to do is challenge those that are reading this to act more like a toddler. Smile at strangers, talk to the lady that lives in the creepy house that seems to have a million cats, if the mother of four in front of you is having to decide if she is going to put the toilet paper back or the bread, milk, and cheese because she is $10 short, give her the ten bucks no strings attached. If we all strive to make other people smile the world will be a much more pleasant place. Our communities can be the place we want our children growing up, but it starts with us.