More from Ty

Ty is slightly difficult to wake up from his naps so, following the suggestion of his mother, I put on the radio and start talking to him well before I really need him to get out of bed. Usually it's K-Love or NPR, since those are generally safe stations for a child to be listening to. Yesterday, as I was attempted to wake him up, I left the room and told him I was going downstairs to find a tiger or shark or crocodile to bite his feet.

Fast forward...

Ty finally got out of bed and sat on my lap as we looked through the window in his room watching life happen outside. This usually keeps him occupied for about half an hour or so. As I said, the kid has a crazy fantastic imagination so we find all sorts of things to talk about, some of which are real but the majority of which are completely made up. We were engaged in a conversation about how all the animals were at a party and the squirrels that ran out of the yard to get more cake when all of the sudden, Ty looks up at me with a very serious expression.

Ty: When you went downstairs to get the shark, I heard on the radio that it is Friday. Is that true?
Me: Yes Ty, it is true. What is your favorite day of the week?
At first he didn't answer so I prompted him with, "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday? "
Ty: (with exasperation in his voice) You know.
Me: I do?
Ty: Yes. This day.
Me: Friday?
Ty: Yes.
Me: Why?
Ty: Because the garbage truck comes on Friday and I like to watch the garbage truck.
He points out the window at the garbage can at the end of the driveway. "Do you see that? See how the lid is flipped open? That is because the garbage truck came today and emptied it."

I freakin' love this kid. It's the small things. I have to remember that.

And also, take time to look out the window with a three year old if you can. I recommend half an hour a day three days a week. It is quite therapeutic.

"We Create What We Want"

"We get what we want, or what we don't refuse. We accept the fact that we will always have poor people around us, and that poverty is part of human destiny. This is precisely why we continue to have poor people around us. If we firmly believe that poverty is unacceptable to us, and that is should not belong to a civilized society, we would have built appropriate institutions and policies to create a poverty-free world. We wanted to go to the moon, so we went there. We achieve what we want to achieve. If we are not achieving something, it is because we have not put our minds to it. We create what we want. What we want and how we get to it depends on our mindsets. It is extremely difficult to change mindsets once they are formed. We create the world in accordance with our mindset. We need to invent ways to change our perspective continually and reconfigure our mindset quickly as new knowledge emerges. We can reconfigure our world if we can reconfigure our mindset."

-Muhammad Yunus
(excerpt from Nobel Lecture, 2006)