Why Tree Stump

I know, Tree Stump is an odd name and really its a family joke. But there is a reason for that being the name of my blog and a story to go with it.

When my very soon to be 10 year old daughter was about 3, I was putting her to bed one night. I tucked her in, read her the same books that we read every night, kissed her and told her I loved her. Her relpy "I love you more than a tree stump". I have no idea why she said it, but I was a little shocked and it was funny coming out of this little girls mouth, so I laughed and thinking that I must rank pretty low, right between tree stumps and rocks or something equally unimpressive and useless, I said something about that must not be very much. She gave me that gee, your dumb look that little kids are so good at and said "They arent just dead trees you know, they are good for lots of things". So I said ok, kissed her again, turned out the light and left. And I started thinking about the tree stump that my daughter was so impressed with and all the things she did with it. She ate her lunch at it, sat on it, used it as a stage to stand on and sing REALLY loudly from, drove little cars on it, she set up doll house furniture on it, used it as a table to color on and who knows what else she used it as. To her, that tree stump served a lot of purposes. It became a regular thing between the two of us, she would tell me she loved me more than cereal, carpet, swings, grass or any other weird thing to be compared to and I would do the same to her. But really what it meant was more than anything.

So why Tree Stump? Its a reminder to me that what I may see as useless and unimpressive may matter a lot to someone else.