Flowers and other forms of life

Yesterday I spent time with my granddaughter Avery.  She loves flowers and as I found out yesterday, bugs and worms. She is fascinated by little things that crawl and will spend hours watching and observing, and checking back in again later. She is also not afraid of much. Like bees.  We were at the park and she saw a bee buzzing in the area and she went after it with Gaga "running" behind yelling, "NOOOOOO!!! DON'T TOUCH THE BEE!!" Thank goodness they fly almost faster than she runs.  The only thing that prevented the bee from being caught was that he flew higher than she could reach ~ while running.

We walked around my yard for the better part of an hour, examining flowers, herbs, and weeds. As we rounded the corner to the part of the yard with the most blooms she yelled "Oh Boy! Oh BOY!!" and started ringing her hands.  I was not sure whether this act was a good thing or not but clearly she was overjoyed with the beauty of all the flowers. For a moment I feared for the life of the plants only because a few minutes earlier she had walked out of the door and bent down to admire a geranium and quicker than I could say "No don't pick" she had pulled the only flower off of the plant and said "There ~ all better" Who could argue with that I thought as she smelled the flower and grinned. So we talked about the happy flowers living on the bushes and settled for picking ONE. We picked one from each bush (including the chive plant) and had quite a beautiful bouquet when we were done. We both wore happy faces after we admired and smelled our beautiful collection.

One of Avery's "friends" watching over her flowers

Later we visited her Grandpa at work.  After eating her treat and coordinated who sat where, she saw an ant crawling around on the floor.  She picked him up and giggled as the ant crawled up her arm.  She handed her new friend off to "Poppy" and then decided squeezing the bug between her thumb and forefinger would keep him in one spot better.  She sang songs to her new friend and decided he had a sad face. Watching her demonstrate a sad face, while she is so happy, is such a cute thing.

On our way home, she lost the bug in Gaga's car, or at the park, we are not sure.  It may have crawled into the half eaten box of raisins, we will never know.  It was small....

Thankfully, on the step to her apartment she found a much bigger ant carrying a small worm.  TWO NEW PETS!  She picked them up, separated them and said "One Two bugs!!! Gaga ~ one two bugs~ oh no! Bug sad!" and she once again demonstrated what the bug looked like with her version of a sad face. It didn't stop her from bringing the bugs into the building and watching them crawl on the bottom step.  The ant bit her ~ which ended the friendship with Avery giving me her sad face ~ so she decided to leave the ant on the floor and keep the worm. I think the worm died by the time we reached her apartment. Once we let the dog out of his cage, she had forgotten about bugs.

I love viewing life from the perspective of a 2 year old.  As we age we forget the beauty of simple pleasures. We are so busy doing "important things" that we stop paying attention to life around us. Why do we have to have our little friends remind us of simple things that bring so much joy?