About two months ago, my daughter and her friend had a project. For it, they asked if I could buy glitter. Well, sure. It’s been years since my house was taken over with glitter and they are so much older now. Surely, they would not use the entire bottle of glitter on their project, so it would be fine. The girls got to work and while they worked, I “prepared” for the glitter. I set out a cut plastic bag in the garage. All I’d have to do is wrap up the excess glitter from the project and toss it. Brilliant, right? When the girls were ready for the glitter portion of their project, I beamed with my amazing strategy. We moved their tri fold board out to the garage and they got to work. The longer they were out there, the more I wondered what the heck they were doing. I went out to check on them and my garage looked like a glitter bomb exploded. I was in shock at first. How the heck did they manage to use an entire brand new bottle of glitter on this project? How did they manage to get very little on the plastic I laid down? How was the glitter ever going to come off of my kid’s hands?!? I wouldn’t let the girls come upstairs until they got all the glitter off of their hands in the basement sink. I would not let the girls bring the tri fold board inside. I insisted on carrying it to minimize the mess. While the girls worked on the other details of their project, I stared at my garage. Well, thankfully it was just the garage. I was relieved they worked on it here as opposed to my friend’s house because I can’t imagine trying to get all that glitter out of her carpet! The girls finished up their project, and it was pretty kick ass.
When the project was done, the girls helped clean up. When her friend went home, Sunshine helped me sweep out the garage. If anyone has ever tried to sweep glitter, you know this is a pointless task. It doesn’t sweep. It spreads. All we managed to do was spread glitter all over the garage and out into the driveway. It was frustrating, but there was literally nothing I could do about it unless I wanted to break out the shop vac. Then, my whole perspective shifted the next morning. I took the older kids to school like usual. Being winter, it was dark and my headlights were on. When I pulled back into the driveway from drop off, everything shimmered. My driveway and garage sparkled. And the sparkles made me smile. Then, I smiled even more thinking about the fun the girls had adding the crazy amount of glitter to their project. I thought how silly I was to be bothered by something as minor as glitter in a garage! Two months later, the glitter is still there and every time I see it, I smile. So often, as parents we get caught up in the day to day annoyances rather than looking for the small smile sparkers. The small shimmer of my driveway and garage remind me to breathe and choose happiness.