The last month has been a bit cold in Brisbane (not snowing or anything, just chilly). We bought a pile of wood to put in our fireplace, but since our ceiling is very high, it takes a while to heat the whole house. So for the first 10 minutes of the morning, each of us has a small heater in the room and we get dressed in front of it and Gal and I have a radiator heater in our office, which keeps us fairly warm.
Last week, on Saturday, our 9-year-old daughter Noff got up and stood next to the radiator. She was feeling cold and while we prepared breakfast, she brought the radiator next to the dining table and stood next to it, refusing to move. While we were setting the table, she peeked under the dining table, looked at the radiator and said in a triumphant voice, “I have an idea!”
We all looked at her and asked, “What is it?”
She turned to Tsoof, who was standing next to her and said to him, “Lift the table”.
We did not know where this was going and Tsoof asked her, “What do you want to do?” but she kept saying, “Just lift the table”.
As he lifted the table and she slid the radiator under it.
“That’s it. Now, we’ll have a warm breakfast”, she said, smiling proudly.
We were not sure exactly what will happen, but we smiled with her.
It was amazingly warm under the table. Even the food tasted better while our legs were warm. We had breakfast for over 2 hours, not wanting to get up.
Since then, I keep thinking we have lived in this house for 7 years, which is 3 months of 7 winters. Multiply that by the number of dinners (because we always have dinners together) and weekend breakfasts (because we always, always have breakfast together on the weekend) and you will come up with just over 800 opportunities to think of this idea, yet we never had!
Noff was another proof for the Jewish proverb:
A child’s simple sense is a kind of wisdom
May you learn from your kids as much as they learn from you.
Happy parenting,
Ronit
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