ORAGAMI CHOPSTICKS

I made dinner last night for family night and we enjoyed a super healthy marinated baked salmon and a spinach salad.  My daughter, as usual,  complained about the salad, but diligently ate it first to get it over with.  Afterwards, my daughter got out her Oragami making kit.  She made me a cup and a paper airplane.  I thought to myself how fun it looked and asked her to hand me the oragami book so I could find something amazing to make.  How hard can it be?  I believe I am more than capable of following instructions, so I proceed to find something rather amazing to wow my daughter.  I finally settle on this rather difficult looking Dragonfly.  I think to myself : I will Instagram my amazing abilities when I am finished…..show the world my Oragami prowess.

First, I thought dang these Oragami papers are tiny.  “Turn on the brighter light please!” I ask my 7 year old.  I sat down at the coffee table in her tiny chair and proceeded to fold, turn, flip, crease, pull, turn, pinch, pucker.  I was on a roll and then, on step 17, I realized I was stuck.  Where did I make a wrong fold or misplaced pucker?  All I know is that I sat staring at what resembled a wadded up piece of paper. The dragonfly didn’t even have wings yet.  There were at least 80 more steps to complete.

My husband and daughter were talking but I had tuned them out….I was determined….I was FOCUSED.  Maybe 20 minutes went by with me looking from the picture in the book to the mess in my hands.  Finally, I decided to call time of death.  I let out a very loud exasperated sigh and threw it across the table.  No matter how much confidence we have in our ability, or how focused we are, the result will sometimes inevitably be failure.  But on this night my daughter taught me a very important lesson.

My daughter walks over to the folded, creased, pinched, wadded, crumpled, TINY, piece of paper and picked it up.  She looked at it very carefully for about a minute or so with a pondering look on her face.  Then she looks at me,  smiles and says, “Good job mom!  You made me a set of chopsticks!”  That’s my little girl, that is the girl I am proud to be raising.  Optimistic, motivational, inspirational, with a love for others and their feelings.  Tonight she taught me that as long as I give it my all the end result may not end up meeting my expectations but it may end up surprising me with a far better outcome.