A grateful heart

Years back, I was left alone to babysit a kid. She was about four years old and I’d been told all I had to do was let her out to play, feed her when she was hungry and put her to sleep when she was tired. Since I knew she was quite a well behaved kid, I wasn’t expecting to be stressed up and immediately her aunt left, I called the child gave her her meal and when she asked if she could go out to play I obliged, advising her not to go too far, and settled down to watch 24. Twenty minutes later she came back looking a bit stressed up, I bathed her and five minutes later she was fast asleep (Oh, the joy of taking care of a good child and an ajebo for that matter).

Waking up, she went to use the bathroom and coming back she asked for a snack. I gave her bobo and biscuit and she said she wanted to go back out and play. As I opened the door to let her out, she stopped as if she had just remembered something, looked up to me with those cute looking eyes and said “Aunty, Thank You”.

I was amazed, and felt the love I had for her grow massively. I stood there smiling for some minutes not even noticing she had already gone out. I was just thinking of what more I could do for her.

I learnt a lesson that day. No matter whom we are, we are never too small or too big to appreciate what someone does for us, even if we are deserving of it or it’s our right. My parents tell me thank you when I go on errands for them, I tell a bike man thank you when I pay him money for the ride, I say Thank you whenever something is handed over to me, even if it’s my own item being returned. A simple “Thank you” goes a long way to show appreciation.  Sometimes we are so ungrateful and we don’t even know the extent of the damage we cause when we don’t appreciate. So I advise y’all, try showing a little appreciation, it helps.