Appreciating the Little Things

My daughter's elementary school had its fundraising carnival this past Saturday. At last year's carnival, my daughter seemed a bit overwhelmed by the whole thing. She couldn't focus on people or interact with anyone. It was really disconcerting. But I knew what the problem was. She was helping me set up our class booth which was adjacent to where people were blowing up balloons using a helium tank. They kept overfilling the balloons, causing them to pop really loudly. My daughter is really sensitive to loud noises and cannot stand the noise of balloons popping. This seemed to throw her off for the rest of the time at the carnival.

This year, we didn't have a lot of balloons at the carnival. It was an extraordinarily windy day (in fact a huge tree branch fell in the kindergarten playground), so I'm guessing the balloons were scrapped.

My daughter and I saw one game that involved throwing darts at small balloons. She immediately covered her ears. I told her that the balloons were so small, I didn't think they would be that loud when they popped. Pretty soon thereafter, we heard one pop, and it wasn't too bad.

I guess my daughter realized this, because not only did she not worry about the balloons popping, but she actually played that game and succeeding in popping one of the balloons! Yay! This was a really big deal for her! I told her how proud I was that she faced her fears.

To many people, playing a game at a carnival isn't a big deal. For us, this was a huge deal! These moments make me really appreciate the little things that actually can grow into really cool big things!