flex your creative. (a fun post)

She’d done it before, so I probably should have expected it.  But as I held her in my arms, her 4-year-old body curved to match the shape of my lap, her eyes melted my heart as always.  I was caught up in my own little Precious Moment world, savoring her tiny little self being held by me.  She’ll be 5 soon.  As I was enjoying a bit of parental bliss, she began to add to it – looking up at me as if she could offer the world…

“Daddy?”

“Yes, Ruby?”

“You…”  She stalled, and at this my mind raced with all the potential statements she could be about to offer me.  Something that would surely fill my parenting tank with love for the week.  I barely breathed, waiting for the words of love that were about to come.

“You have spider webs in your nose.”

Oh.  I smiled gently, tickled her a bit for being silly, and we moved on from the moment.  But it reminded me – my kids see the world imaginatively without any effort.  Our children see a world of infinite possibilities, believing so much of what they’re told, or what they can imagine in a given context.  We adults?  We see reality.  We dis-believe.  We ask questions.  We cynacize.  We look up into someones nostrils, and see his nosehairs.

But I’m confident, we can see spider webs, if we’re willing.  If we recognize our imaginative degeneration as the problem it is, and work to keep those muscles functioning.  With that in mind, I’d like to offer you an exercise.  It even seems adult-ish.  As I showered the other day, I noticed a shampoo in our bathroom named “Pantene – Ultimate 10”.  I was curious what the “10” referred to, and as I turned it around I realized someone had been very (although limitedly as we’ll soon see) creative in their descriptions about what this poo can do.

So my exercise today is simple, help Pantene out.  They’ve given 10 decent adjectives, but I’m fairly confident we can do better.   That someday, Pantene could sell “Ultimate 100” using the same formula.  No limits!!!  Here are the current adjectives they’ve given:

1. Repair for rough hair                  5. Smoothing                             8. Gentle Cleaning
2. Strength against Damage          6. Moisture                                 9. Manageability
3. Silky Softness                                7. Frizz Control                      10. Detangling
4. Brilliant Shine

I know there are more descriptions that they’ve not captured.  No matter what your poo preference, I’m asking us to join together as parents and grown-ups who want to keep up with the imaginations of the next generation!  Here are just a few of my own:

11. Crazy awesomeness                  12.  Flowery Smelling                    13. Magically Noticeable

What might you add??

Or are you the kind of person who’s okay seeing nose-hairs?