Jun 29 2009
Party Like a Four-Year-Old!
Saturday night I attended a birthday party for a friend who turned forty. The party was in a beautiful, old building on the campus of our local university. The large room had a lofty ceiling, lovely staircases with polished banisters, marble fireplaces at either end, deep windows looking out onto the clipped green lawn and well-tended flower beds. It was a very sophisticated, grown-up sort of room for a birthday party. A few of the guests brought their young children. Two little girls, in particular caught my attention. I think they were sisters and they were dressed in sweet, pink, ankle length party dresses and little white sandals. They were summer-party personified! They ran from one end of the room to the other; they ran from one vacant chair to another, squealing all the time, arms raised in sheer delight. These chicks knew how to party. Exuberant energy propelled them from one end of the room to the other. What were the rest of us doing? Standing around, sipping our wine, making polite conversation. “Oh, so how does it feel to be forty!” we asked the guest of honor. “Old,” I think he said. Instead, I think we should have been asking the young girl who was now scooting down the carpeted stairs on her bottom, “Oh, so how does it feel to be four!” I’m sure she would have laughed at our question, if she’d heard it at all. The four-year-old in me wanted to join her. I wanted to feel the bumpity-bump-bump jar the very teeth in my head as I bumped down the hundred-year-old staircase. I didn’t want to worry about messing up my party dress, knocking the curl out of my hair, or even spilling my drink! I wanted to race to the bottom of the staircase on my bottom and then turn and scramble on all fours back up to the top again! So today, I ask you to join me in celebrating being four. You were four once, you must remember some of it! I’m not going to plan WHAT I’m going to do, because a four-year-old wouldn’t plan it, but I’m going to allow some sort of four-year-old behavior to bubble to the surface today and I plan to act on it. I did this yesterday and the joy it released in me was worth years of therapy and countless dollars spent on self-help books. This is what I did: I watered the flowers in the back yard with my new long, garden hose attachment that has amazing features, such as “jet,” “cone,” “soaker,” “spray,” “shower,” and others. I found that when I turned the nozzle to “shower” it sent out a wonderful spray of water that mimicked a summer rain-shower falling around my hydrangeas and petunias. Hmmmm, I thought, what if I held it over my head? Yes! It was just like rain falling around me, pelting the top of my head, sending rivulets of water down my face, dripping off my nose! I stood in the rain-shower of my own making for several minutes, loving the coolness of the water on my face and the warmth of the sun. And then I thought, Would a four-year-old feel the need for this inner dialogue? No, I decided. She would just let the rain fall on her face and feel joy. Period. So I did. How will you party like a four-year old today? For ideas, read Dr. Seuss’s THE CAT IN THE HAT and laugh at the shenanigans of the CAT as he brings delightful chaos to the household. And listen to the adult voice of Fish, horrified at what he sees going on around him. Ask yourself who you’d rather be! So what will you do? Go to the park and swing with your children? Play in the sandbox? Swing by your knees from the monkey bars? Climb a tree? Party like a four-year-old today and have some fun. Instead of reading books today, walk around the house once or twice with a book balanced on your head. Have races. Have fun. Tell me what you did!
