A little bucket of joy

I missed blogging! :) The past few days have been manic at work and I'm still not fully recovered yet! The worst of the flu is over but I have a nagging stubborn cough which makes my throat sore. Sigh.

Anyway, on to my musings about a little bucket of joy. A few days ago, DH brought home a small empty bucket of M&Ms. His colleague had bought it as a treat for everyone at his workplace. The empty bucket was left in the office pantry. DH saw that the bright yellow bucket was very cheerful and just the right size for Osh Osh, so he took it before it was thrown away.

When Osh Osh saw the little yellow bucket, his face lit up with a big grin. He asked, "What's this?", still smiling away. I told him it was a bucket. He said, "Not a basket?". I said, "No". I told him he can do whatever he wants with it.

Osh Osh then happily went around collecting some of his toys (ping pong balls that my father in law gave him, small plastic toy trains, pink balloons and some orange blocks) and put them in his little yellow bucket. Not to worry, we have made it very clear to Osh Osh not to ever put the ping pong balls in his mouth and he understands how dangerous it is to do so. Of course, we still watch him whenever he plays with them.

He could think of so many uses for his bucket. One moment, it's a toy carrier. The next, it is a dump truck. He also used the lid as a food platter (the food being all his little toys) after he had "cooked" them in the little bucket.

To us, it's just an empty bucket but to Osh Osh, it is anything his mind imagines it to be. It's also heartwarming for me to see that he can be so happy with such a simple object and that he doesn't need expensive toys to keep him happy. I pray that he will never lose his appreciation for the simple joys of life and that both DH and I can learn that from him too.

Moods

Have you ever wondered how volatile children are?

Osh Osh went through so many high and low moods all within a span of a few hours - from the moment we got home to his bedtime, he was up and down and up and down and well, you get the picture.

Firstly, he was happily talking to us in the car about things he saw on the road. Then, when we parked and got out of the car, he started to say that he was tired and refused to walk so I had to carry him. Otherwise, all 3 of us will not get anywhere near home and that would have been disastrous considering how tired and hungry DH and I both were.

Then, he was happy again once home. Today was a bit odd. He wanted to take out all his baby toys from the toybox which he had not touched in probably over a year. So there he was on his own in the living room, reliving his "babyhood".

Next was bathtime and he fussed and cried again when DH bathed him. After that, he came over to our room to look for me and told me what parts of the body you need to wash when you bathe. He said his teacher taught him that he needs to wash his hair, his stomach, his knees and his legs. He was laughing when he said that.

Dinner time was a completely different story. Today he was particularly agitated and didn't want to eat his dinner. We had to put him in a corner as he fussed so much. He cried and cried so we couldn't even start a proper time out until he was quiet. DH and I carried on with our dinner but halfway through, I lost my appetite.

Osh Osh eventually completed his time out of 3 minutes about 20 minutes later. When I brought him back to the dining table, he started eating again. Definitely a bit slower than usual but he was eating. He started being chatty again, talking about his art work at school and his soldier toys.

I could go on and on but writing about this is really making me tired. It's like reliving it again! I was already worn out when I went through it the first time so a rehash of this is really not doing me any good.

The end result of today is that Osh Osh went to bed happy, despite the many ups and downs he had today. He drifted off to sleep peacefully with a little red bear key chain on his index finger (he likes to hold something as he sleeps and the item can vary from day to day) and believe me, he wouldn't have remembered most of the episodes that he had this evening when he wakes up tomorrow morning.

The thing is we as adults experience volatility in our own moods too. All the time, all day every day. However, I guess as adults, we're better at masking it, supressing it, denying it, justifying it, (the list goes on) whereas for kids, it all just comes out as and when it happens.

Now, my question is...which is the better approach? Are we adults better at coping with our moods or is it better to react honestly to our moods like children do? Children, for most of the time, do not carry any emotional baggage whereas to find an adult without any emotional baggage, one would be put to the task as difficult as finding a needle in a haystack.

Hmm...