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Friday, August 17, 2012

I Learned Something From a Six-Year-Old (and I'm proud to admit it)

     It's crazy how many notions adults have developed based on things that are "proper" and "right" and "true" that have no real basis in reality. It's even crazier how easy it is to destroy most of these notions by looking at them from a child's point of view. I have been babysitting for several years as an on and off job, and over that time I've learned a lot about cooking, cleaning to cover up mistakes, being a dog's chew toy, and the meaning of the words, "I have to potty NOW!" I've discovered though that some of the most profound wisdom comes not from lessons learned through experience, but straight from the six-year-old's mouth.
     The other day while babysitting, I found myself baking a pizza for the first time while also supervising a painting session. Somewhere between keeping up with all the color and clean brush demands and frantically calling my grandmother to find out how to bake a pizza, I noticed that my charge was about to dip a brush covered in blue paint into the orange paint jar. Reacting purely out of instinct, I said, "Oh sweetie, don't do that. It'll make yucky brown." And with the most innocent face ever she looks up at me and says, "I like to mix the paints, 'cause sometimes you get a color you've never seen before." And she proceeded to dip.
Huh.
She was right.
Blue and orange do in fact make a color I've never seen before. And it isn't all that yucky.
I'd love to be six again.

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