She pulls them out of the box one at a time, or in fistfuls, her happiness is lighting up her eyes as she discovers their texture in her hands, tastes them on her tongue, feels them fall on her face and belly. She has learned to let go of them now so she can increase her joy with more tissues pulled from the box.

What is a box of tissues when handed to my little girl one week away from celebrating her 5 months birthday?

Mess? Sure.

So many crinkled tissues they no longer fit back in the box? Yes.

Torn and soggy tissues? Definitely.

A few yells of frustration as she figures out how to get her hand out of the box she has been waving around madly? Every time, but each time a little later with a little less frustration as she figures it all out.

Increasing dexterity? Totally.

Increasing her knowledge of her world? Yep.

Getting her to stretch out her reach? Of course.

Developing her problem solving skills?…

I could go on and on and on, but when it comes right down to it the only part that matters is she is having fun. Why analyse the value of something based on anything other than the happiness it brings you? True fulfilling happiness not the passing momentary kind. That is what we hope to help our daughter learn. To learn to do whatever makes her happy, what resonates with her heart. Parenting for us is helping her to learn to distinguish between the types of happiness; attraction and resonance and that to live a fulfilling life she needs to choose from the resonance happiness more than the attraction happiness. Thankfully we have a few years to figure it all out and for now we can just enjoy the tissues.