Life lessons from a 4-year-old.

Life lessons from a 4-year-old.

Good afternoon. 

Marielle Argueza here, trying not to feel constrained as we approach a year of shelter-in-place. But I’m also trying to remind myself that a lot of the world’s adventures and experiences are still new to children, even now, is a reason to feel the opposite. 

I occasionally receive FaceTime calls from my young niece—the only grandchild in my immediate Argueza family tree thus far—and the interactions always end up with me rolling on the floor or crying from laughter. 

I haven’t seen her in-person for over a year, but in the small snippets I get to spend with her over the phone, she’s always learning something new or discovering something I also enjoyed as a kid. She’s figuring out things like cooking and gardening (she’s pretty good at both). She also has an insatiable appetite for reading. When we talk, she transforms into a walking encyclopedia and tells her aunties about the new history-making women or dinosaurs she’s read about in books (she’s currently a Florence Nightingale stan).

You don’t even have to want or like kids to feel inspired by their unstifled curiosity. I think we can all take a lesson from my favorite 4-year-old this week: Maybe things are not new to us, but we can all use a little play and free-form expression once in a while. Check out this week’s Hot Picks section for ideas on how to cultivate your inner child. 

-Marielle Argueza, staff writer, marielle@mcweekly.com