Inspiration: a New Stapler

Yesterday my daughter and I went to Staples and bought…a new stapler. It felt a little self-referential.

Anyway, she chose it (it’s pink, you might have guessed), but didn’t seem all that excited about it. Our other stapler, the one I must have brought to college with me, died. So it was time.

When we got home, however, something magical happened. It’s something that happens relatively often, and probably happens in your house, too, if you’re paying attention. It’s a quiet sort of magic.

I imagine my daughter’s thought processes like this:

New stapler. Pink. Very nice. Hm. What can you make with a stapler? I make books with a stapler. Mommy just brought down a stack of fresh clean printer paper, not that recycled stuff with printing on the back that she usually tries to get me to use. Why does she think it’s possible to do great art on the back of a receipt from drugstore.com? Hm. White paper. Stapler. I know, I’ll make a book!

Actually, I’m guessing her thoughts were a lot more interesting and indirect, but that’s as good an approximation as I can type.

So I had a bunch of things to do in the kitchen. She was in the breakfast room, just on the other side of the counter. I heard her humming. Then I had to go upstairs, so as I passed by I glanced at her. She was hard at work on the floor (both of my kids get more inspired on the floor…why is that?). I saw that she was writing furiously on paper. I went upstairs. Got some work done. She and her brother were in a room together for twenty minutes. Silence. Humming. No fighting. Something special was going on.

A new stapler! I came downstairs.

The book was done. She started to try to staple it, and for a moment I thought we were headed for a major blow-up. The new stapler didn’t work! Mommy to the rescue – she’d put the staples in upside-down. She stapled her book and presented it to me. We were just about to leave, so I asked if we could read it later.

When evening came I realized that in the flurry of activity, we hadn’t gotten to reading it. So I brought it to bed and read it out loud. It’s not often that I get to laugh till I cry. We giggled ourselves to sleep.

It was definitely worth the price of a stapler.

Oents Opon A ti thare was A BoY named: Jon He HAd Lost A tooth But He couLd not Find it so H LeFt A note to the tooth FiarY
the Ansre wAs He couLd nothAv monY so He wEnt to his mothrs Pers And stoL $1.00 And Pout it his PiLo And the next moning he seAde he Got monY FroM the tooth FiarY his MoM Loved he got monY From thE tooth FiarY so she SAede he souLd Go BY somnin At the Stor so he did.
the End.

Once upon a time there was a boy named: Jon. He had lost a tooth but he could not find it. So he left a note to the Tooth Fairy. The answer was he could not have money. So he went to his mother’s purse and stole $1.00 and put it under his pillow. The next morning he saw that he got money from the Tooth Fairy. His mom loved that he got money from the Tooth Fairy. So she said he should go buy something at the store. So he did.

The End