Happiness is Dancing with Your Shadow

Between the vibrating cell phone calls, the urgent email messages on your Blackberry, the downloading MP3, the constant bills, the ignored, yet loved DVR, the non-stop solicitations via phone and mail....life gets not only complicated, but also very annoying. We're pushed and pulled in a million directions.

Life handed me a "mom moment" the other day and I actually stopped long enough to appreciate it. I was playing outside with my energetic young children, when I noticed my little toddler was dancing. Well, we don't have speakers outside, so there wasn't any music. My older child wasn't singing and luckily for the neighbors, neither was I! As I watched my toddler, he continued to clap and sway and wave.

Then I noticed he was involved in a conversation - he was talking to his shadow! He danced with it for a while and smiled as it danced back. He tried to grab it a few times and seemed frustrated when he would only succeed in grabbing a handful of dirt. The routine lasted for about 10-15 minutes and ended with a happy wave saying, "bye bye baby!" Of course, the baby waved back at him. What a polite shadow.

It was a really cute moment and one that reminded me how innocent life can be for a child. And maybe we would all benefit by dancing with our shadows once in a while. It certainly looked like fun.

Musings on life as a mom from MommyQ.