Yellow-blue-red and the Rolling Stones

If you've been following this blog for any length of time, you'll know what a "yellow-blue-red" is.  If you haven't, and therefore don't know, let me break it down for you:

"Yellow-blue-red" is what Jonathan calls his all-time favourite activity:  he throws the ball into the top of this apparatus and catches it as it comes out the yellow, blue, or red hole at the bottom.  His schoolyard (pictured here) has one of these, and Jonathan has spent countless recesses out on the yard playing yellow-blue-red.

We found out recently that a new section is going to be added onto the school to accommodate the transition to all-day kindergarten in the fall.  So we'd had warning, but it still came as a surprise when Jonathan and I went to the school this past weekend (after having been away for a week on our trip out east) and saw that the construction fencing was all set up.  And at first it appeared that the yellow-blue-red was confined inside the construction site.  Oh, no!!!

But as we got a little closer, we realized that wasn't the case:  the yellow-blue-red had been moved to a different location.  The principal, whom I happened to bump into at the grocery store on Sunday, told me it had been made clear to the construction crew that they would have to move this item and install it in a location where a particular child could play with it.  And on Monday Jonathan's EA told me that the caretaker, Rob, who is a special buddy of Jonathan's, had supervised this operation and made sure the yellow-blue-red was put in a suitable place.

The Rolling Stones told us way back in 1969 that "you can't always get what you want."  And that's a good thing to be reminded of.  The world can't always revolve around our individual preferences; there are many things we would like to have or do that just aren't possible.  Coming to realize that we're fairly small players in the overall scheme is usually a healthy and humble insight.  

But when it turns out that our particular needs or wants have been addressed, that we've been noticed and accommodated, it feels good.  We may be small, but we matter.  That's how I felt when I saw the yellow-blue-red in its new location outside the construction fence.  Jonathan's needs had been taken into account, and his happiness was clearly important to the school.

Sometimes, apparently, you can get what you want -- without even having to ask.