Badges by Maggie

by threegirlpileup

I love the little paper surprises that Maggie dreams up.

This weekend it was badges.  Here’s how it started.  Maggie and Anna were looking for Anna’s plastic ladle, a dearly beloved kitchen implement.  Although I didn’t know where the ladle was, I told them that the day before, Howard (my dad) had rescued it from the trash.  And then they ran off, I went back to what I was doing, and didn’t think any more of it.  I knew Maggie was working on some kind of project, as she’d asked me for some safety pins.  But this is nothing unusual, so it didn’t particularly capture my attention.

Until, a little later, Maggie came back in the room with a special package for my dad.  Inside was this:

…and yes, that’s a picture of my dad saving the precious ladle from the trash.

More badges turned up over the course of the day, including one for me:

and one for Anna…

…each arriving carefully wrapped in a box and addressed to the recipient.

What a big heart my big girl has.  She is not the most sentimental of children, and much less emotionally effusive than my littler one.  But a steady stream of these loving little treasures emerge from her markers and pencils and scissors and tape.  And there’s something especially magical about the way they appear entirely from her own imagination.