Iguana

Yesterday I spent time with some new groups of preschoolers. When you spend time with preschoolers, you are always going to learn new things. New things about them or new things about how to see the world. Even talking with children I see regularly gives me new insights and new ideas.

As I talked with one of my friends, he was working on a picture. He filled the page with blue (the sky). Then he took a pencil and drew in a figure that I could not see. "It's an iguana," he said. He grabbed a green paint stick to bring the iguana to life on his field of blue.

To make conversation, I made a comment about an iguana looking like a lizard.

"An iguana is a lizard," my friend explained. "It's my favorite lizard." I nodded. Then he said, "Lizard is my favorite animal, and iguana is my favorite lizard."

His comment resonated with me all day. It reminded me of other things I've heard from preschoolers. They tell me their favorite foods or even their "fourth favorite color." Adults don't do this same thing. We may have favorite things, but we don't usually have conversations about them with others. We often do not categorize and list the things we like or enjoy.

Maybe that's why this "journey of joy" for me has been so interesting. I've been able to catalog things that bring joy. I think about my favorite moment of the day or a favorite thing I saw or did. I'm going to start thinking about my favorite things...maybe not telling everyone about them but at least thinking about the favorite things I like and savoring those joys each day.

For the record: My favorite lizard is chameleon. My fourth favorite color is blue (at least today it is).