Smiling Hippos

Mornings are always hectic in my house. Breakfast has to be made, lunch has to be packed, and assorted characters have to be woken up. I am frequently business like and curt in the mornings since that is my mindset at the time. Who has time to stop and enjoy the fragrance of freshly-brewed tea? Who has the time to glance at the newspapers in anything more than the most cursory fashion? Who has the time to berate tardy maids? This then is how I greet each day. Every morning I resolve to be cool and pleasant-tongued only to wake up late and screech “Oh, no!” before diving headlong into a fury of work.
My children have, over the years, learnt not to respond verbally to my frequent admonitions to hurry and brush, hurry and bathe, hurry and eat. This does not mean that they wake up on time or brush their teeth without squeezing half the contents of the paste tube into the sink. This just means that they drag their feet and irritate me and my husband wordlessly! As soon as we are all in the car, I relax and so can everyone else.
So this morning while I was furiously towelling my daughter dry, she grinned and asked me if I knew why the hippo was happy. I raised my eyebrows and continued with my work of slathering on lotion on her arms and legs and replied that I had no clue why any hippo should be happy. She said that the hippo in the zoo was smiling mightily just like the chimpanzee. “So why was the chimpanzee smiling?” I asked. “Don’t you remember that someone gave it some biscuits, Amma?” she piped up. It was true – some nut had thrown biscuits at the chimpanzee in the zoo completely disregarding the sign that said “Please don’t feed the animals”. “He was so happy to eat it and that’s why the chimpanzee was smiling”. I agreed and started helping her with her clothes. “So why was the hippo smiling then?” I continued. “I think he liked me because I waved at him and said softly “Have a nice day, hippo!””. I smiled at her and said she was right. She skipped merrily away downstairs to eat her breakfast.
So I found my morning was easier when I allowed myself a moment to smile instead of running around like a headless chicken. I marvelled at a child who could go to sleep full of dreams and wake up thinking of smiling hippos. How lovely it would be if all of us could care enough to make at least one person smile in one day! Even if it happened to be a hippo ;-)