The simple pleasures

Today I needed to run an errand to a place where parking is notoriously horrible. I decided to take a friend’s scooter instead. Just before leaving the house my wife asked if one of the kids could go with me for a ‘big adventure’. They were off school today. So I told my daughter, who almost never gets to go places like that with me, to get her shoes on.

That launched a display of energy and excitement that will be hard to repeat. She was jumping up and down, running around announcing to anyone who would listen that she was going with daddy. Likely the whole building knew.

We got down to the parking garage downstairs and she was on the scooter before me. I had to climb on around her. With the scooters here a child like her can stand between my feet on a flat footboard kind of place. So she stood straight as an arrow and looked all around as we drove.

People take notice of a blond-haired blue-eyed little girl with curly hair (made more curly by the humidity from all the recent rains we have had). She was waving to people in cars, on buses, on other scooters and even people standing on the side of the road.

She got lots of attention in the stores we had to go to, and provided a welcome distraction for many who would rather not have been working today since it was a kind of holiday, but not the kind you get off work for.

As we drove home she again stood straight up and looked around, taking in all the sights along the way, with the exception of the few times the wind would pick up and she would cover her eyes to keep the blowing dust out of them. This whole exciting trip (which lasted maybe an hour total) must have been very taxing on her energy-wise since tonight for dinner she at 5 full-sized pancakes.

The simple pleasure of a short trip with daddy. Makes me wonder how many ‘simple pleasures’ I have missed out on recently without even knowing it.