The Importance of "And a Half"

I am often surprised at how much I underestimate my younger cousins. Whenever I see them, I know that I'll have fun no matter what, but the things they teach me is incredible. One of my cousins is 5 1/2, and she stresses the "and a half" as if it were a matter of life and death. She was telling me about one of her new friends who was five, but as she said: "I'm five and a half so I'm older than her. I have so much to teach her!" At first I just thought it was cute, but it did get me thinking. We take half a year for granted so much right now.

You don't hear many adults following their age with "and a half" (if they bother to tell you how old they REALLY are) because as you get older, it doesn't seem to matter. To a little girl who is five, half a year really can make a difference. When you're young, half a year can mean new bits of knowledge from school or general life lessons. In babies, half a year can be the difference between holding your head up and crawling. There is so much that can happen, and as you get older it doesn't seem as incredible. In the past half year, I personally have made a lot of changes to who I am: the lessons I've learned, the facts I've learned, and the wisdom I gain and share. Whether or not that makes me a better person doesn't seem to matter as much as the fact that it has made me who I am today.

Children are wonderful. Never take them for granted. They can teach you so much if you open your mind to them.