My 3-year-old granddaughter discovered a valuable lesson a couple of months ago – spilled milk is nothing to cry about.
She had found a bouncy ball in the garage. It had a handle and a horse’s face that fit over it so she could bounce around pretending she was riding a horse.
When it got too hot outside, Chloe brought the “horse” in the house. She bounced through the living room, into the kitchen, back into the living room – round and round.
She had a look of sheer delight on her face, obviously having the time of her life. Bouncing, bouncing, bouncing. You would have thought she was really riding a pony or something.
Capturing the moment
As a typical granny, I pulled out my cell phone to capture a few minutes of her fun. I try to limit my spontaneous videos to a minute or less in case I want to send them to her mom and dad or other grandparents. Doesn’t take as long to send short clips as it does long ones.
This one ended a little more abruptly than usual. She bounced over to where a glass of milk sat on the coffee table. In her hurry to get back to bouncing, she jerked it up so fast, milk slopped out of the glass all over her, the table and the floor. She immediately started to cry.
She was fine by the time we got it all cleaned up, back to bouncing as if nothing had happened.
I took a couple more videos with happier endings. The one ending in tears, however, was what she kept coming back to, viewing it over and over and over. She loves watching herself in our home videos. But she clearly had a concern about this one.
Why is she crying?
“Why is she crying?” she asked after a few views, as if it were someone else she was asking about.
“Well, I’m not sure,” I said. “I guess she’s upset about spilling her milk.”
She watched a few more times. “But WHY is she crying?”
“I don’t know,” I continued to say each time she asked.
She finally went on to play with something else after a while, but obviously was still thinking about the video.
Not many minutes passed before she came back to where I sat, crawled up in my lap and asked to look at my phone again. After four or five more views and the same conversation, she looked at me with a big smile on her face.
Aha – there’s nothing to cry about
“Bama,” she said – yes, my grandchildren actually call me Bama. As a graduate of Alabama and a big Roll Tide fan, I love it.
We had been playing around with what they should call me. I was OK with whatever evolved. Because Chloe couldn’t pronounce what her older brother was saying at the time – Gama – Bama came out of her mouth. After that, it became a done deal.
Anyway, Chloe had this look of satisfaction on her face, like she had discovered a big secret.
“That’s nothing to cry about,” she said gleefully. We both started laughing.
Hoping she’d remember her revelation, we kept talking about it. I asked her why did she think spilled milk was nothing to cry about.
“Because it’s OK. We cleaned it up,” she said brightly.
I’m sure she won’t always remember that. Nobody likes to make mistakes. But the more she’s reminded, the more likely she can get past the next mistake.
I just wish I could get it myself!
Learning from a child
Clearly, most of the mistakes I’ve made over the years – and there have been plenty – are not worth getting upset. And crying doesn’t change anything, anyway.
When we can objectively examine where things go askew in life, we’re likely to see for ourselves there’s really nothing to cry about.
The most productive approach has always been to just clean up the mess as well as possible and move on. I can’t say I always did that, but it always worked best when it happened.
I wonder what else I can learn from these grandchildren. I certainly learned a lot from their dad.
Jane Self, PhD, was assistant features editor for the Macon Telegraph and features editor for The Tuscaloosa News. She received her master's degree in secondary education from Louisiana State University in New Orleans and her PhD in education administration from the University of Alabama. 
Jane Self was features editor at The Tuscaloosa News when the Fallen Warriors series began. Although she left the paper, she continued to write these profiles on a freelance basis for The News until the series was stopped in May 2009. Jane has since updated and published them as an E-book. 
In 1991 "60 Minutes" aired a story that attempted to destroy the life and work of EST founder Werner Erhard. Award-winning journalist Jane Self suspected there was more to these allegations than being reported. She discovered an amazing plot of espionage, conspiracy, and sabotage.