Slippers

I went over to my cousin's house yesterday to visit my little nieces. They are all under the age of 10 so they are all still very cute. The youngest, whom I last saw just a few months ago can apparently walk now (how fast kids grow!!), is only about a year and a half years old. :D

I was lucky to be invited into playing games with them because kids these days can be a little shy and fearful (besides being loud and annoying). So I found an abacus and decided to take it out to play. By play, I mean I decided to wave it around and see if the kids pay me any attention. (Also because I have no idea how to use an abacus *cough*) But one of my nieces found it fun to simply move the beads up and down.

Her: *flips bead up* *giggles, giggles*

Me: *flips another bead up*

Her: *giggles, giggles* *flips some more* *giggles, giggles*

Then when she accidentally turned the abacus around, she found that she had made a startling and magnificent discovery. The abacus could now become a car!

And it quickly became a game between her and her siblings to see who could push the abacus-turned-car farther without toppling the Hello Kitty figurine rested on the abacus-turned-car.

They played for about 10 minutes.

Today, when I saw them again, one of them was dressed in an orange dress with a pair of orange slippers to match. Now, the slippers have teddy bear heads on the straps. And you know those plastic teddy eyes sold in the market where the eyeballs (or rather, the iris) can jiggle? Yeah, the heads had one of those eyes.

My niece found great joy in jumping about and watching the eyes jiggle. She jumped and jumped, laughing and giggling along the way to no one but herself and her sister.

I'm not sure if the world becomes more complicated as we grow up or if it is our minds that and thoughts that complicate as we grow older. Or perhaps we like to think it as the world requires us to complicate things because things are generally, not simple.

Or maybe we just think too much.

I watched my niece jump around, feeling genuinely happy because she owned a pair of slippers that have jiggly eyes. I own a pair of slippers - oversized but amazingly durable - that is a gift from my friends but I don't look at it, jump around in it, grin foolishly at it and feel excessively happy. It is a pair of slippers. End.

Although come to think of it, when you own something that is a gift, you should feel happy. And if you feel happy, it is perfectly reasonable to jump around and grin foolishly. So sometimes I find the social norm just a teeny bit weird. People don't jump around in slippers because it's foolish. People aren't supposed to grin foolishly at nothing because it's odd and they may be mad.

But it's better to be "mad" than not to feel happy or thankful for the things that we have, no?

Btw, even though this is going to kill a bit of the imaginary momentum that I have for this post, a light bulb missed my head by seconds a moment ago. By light bulb, I mean literal light bulb, not an idea sort of light bulb. I was just minding my own business, pacing around the living room when this light bulb just dropped from its rightful place in the... light bulb holder (???). Anyway, the amazing thing was that I'd just walked past the exact spot seconds before and thus managed to escape unscathed.

Phew~!

I should put my fingers together now and give thanks for having been spared from brain damage and for friends who gives slippers for birthdays.

Then I shall go outside and jump around in my slippers....