Resourceful and Inventive

My favorite purse broke on me the other day. The screw from the handle came out and I thought it was lost forever thereby making my favorite purse a goner. So, I threw it in the trash. The next day I woke up bright and early and was making breakfast when my favorite little girl came running into the kitchen with something behind her back. "Mommy, I have something for you." Then she showed me my purse. "It's broken sweetie." I said. Then she proudly went on to explain how she fixed it. I have to say, although I think she's capable of many things, her fixing my purse was not really something that made that list, until now. I looked carefully at the purse, I looked at how she figured out what the problem was and found a solution that would work and then fixed it. It may seem so simple but this action of hers started to bring tears to my eyes (this is not difficult right now.) I told her how happy I was to have my purse back and then I told her that she was just like a little engineer. Her face was beaming as she walked away. The whole day she talked about how she was going to be an engineer when she grew up. What made me cry? Not only is it so sweet to see the kind things our children do for us, but for this brief moment I felt she might be learning a bit of what we are all trying to teach our kids: to be resourceful and inventive. It was one of those rare moments when I felt like my mothering was actually working.