Note: I'm on Thanksgiving break this week so I'm offering up a post that I wrote when my daughter was almost one year. A little food for thought this Thanksgiving week. Enjoy!

We touched a tree today.

It was the remaining large willow oak that guards our house like a centurion from another era. Which it is, really. Its sister came down almost two years ago after much research, tears and fears...of broken limbs crashing through bedroom windows. This sole surviving sister seems hale, though, and up to the task of guardian.

Elisabeth and I were a bit bored as we waited for Lindsey to come around the corner. We were ready for an adventure and so I thought starting small would be a good first step. She is little and big things are mesmerizing. I lifted her up and she reached out her hand. If I was more adept, I could have captured the moment on film. A tiny hand pressed up against the gummy, thick as rope, bark of one hundred plus year old tree. I touched it too. It was surprisingly cool. The bark, its skin, was so strong and had a gritty smell that I wanted to bottle for another day. We looked at each other, then at our hands on the bark. Lastly, we looked up. Her massive canopy of leaves, so full and dense shielded our faces from the sky. It was the kind of roof that you'd have in a treehouse.

It's truly the small things that rock our worlds.

When do we ever stop to smell the lilacs, to touch a tree, to collect a stone that strikes our fancy as we happen to glance down? Not often enough, even if you are with a toddler. Yeah, we all need to do it more.

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Does this sound like your toddler? Fascinated by little things but not yet ready to tackle them alone? Join my Toddler Group starting December 6 and learn more about yourself and him.