Yesterday my three grand girls who live across the street came swimming at our pool. Ashley, age 9, shared with me her Sunday afternoon petting zoo adventure with her daddy. It seems that upon their arrival, my son Dan, their dad, spotted a goat with a single horn. In a delighted tone he called his girls' attention to it saying, "Girls look, a unicorn!"
"No Daddy," corrected Ashley in gleeful tones, "A unihorn!"
I am sure that they all laughed at Ashley's clever turn of phrase, I know that I have been mentally replaying her line and each time a smile and chuckle bubbles up inside me. "No Daddy a unihorn!" Ha Ha.
Earlier in the day yesterday I presented a training session for the staff of a county agency devoted to preventing child abuse in the community; a difficult and stressful job. The training was aimed at helping the participants to decompress after stressful cases. Toward the end of the workshop each member was asked to share his or her most effective stress reduction strategy. They had good ones: exercise, yoga, meditation, prayer, working with the preschoolers at church, listening to music, zumba dancing, blogging, playing with their grandchildren, or visiting with nieces and nephews. All of these were effective coping methods, but I noticed how many were in touch with the power of children. I recalled the statistic that children laugh about 425 times a day compared to 10-15 times a day for adults. Clearly as we take on the burdens of adult life we lose something. Perhaps silence grows within the humorous jokester inside of us.
As Ashley related her "unihorn" story to me she was strapping on her new lavender swim fins and matching mask and snorkel. Soon she slipped into the pool and began cruising the length of it, back and forth, no doubt imagining some treasure lurking at the bottom. As she swam away, I remained in the spa with her 3 year-old sister, Caroline, who now had me to herself.
Princess-loving Caroline
"Mimi, will you play with me?"
"Sure, Caroline. What should I do?"
"Well I am going to be the evil queen Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty and I am going to......." And with that she outlined a very elaborate plan which somehow paralled the Sleeping Beauty story. "So Mimi, when I say all that, you say, 'Okay', alright?"
With that, Caroline donned her mask and repeated the rather complicated story line. I was getting the idea that somehow we were actors in a play. When her words came to an ending, I dutifully repeated, "Okay", as I had been directed. A huge smiled beamed across her face and she dived into the water. Clearly I had said my line correctly! I was very pleased with myself.
As she merrily swam away I grinned. At that precise moment, 12 year-old Elizabeth did a running double flip off the diving board, sending a wave of splashing water cascading across the pool deck, much to the delight of 12 week-old Lacey the Puppy who had been standing nearby taking in all the excitement that shadows these three exciting girls.
Neuroscientists know that the mirroring neurons in our brains act like wi-fi, picking up signals from those around us; that depression and joy are in some ways "contagious." Science also knows that the mere act of creating a smile lets us feel happier. There is evidence that 40 smiles a day can actually allow endorphins to dump into our blood stream, that it is possible to "trick" our brain into thinking we are happy even with a fake set of smiles, and then we actually feel better! Why wouldn't we want to feel happier? Perhaps we should give ourselves permission to fall into the magical world of the children around us? If we would just stop for awhile and really enter into their imaginative and creative worlds, I think we would laugh and smile a whole lot more. So have you orbited with the kids lately? I would love to hear about it.
