It’s Small Success Thursday at CatholicMom.com! Take a little time out of your Thursday to reflect on 3 (give or take) ways you’ve nailed the small things this week–because it’s really those small things that make the difference.

Today is my dad’s 75th birthday, so I’m dedicating Small Success Thursday to him today, with 3 of those everyday little things he did, as a dad, that really made a difference to me.

• Dad packed our school lunches every morning, beginning when I was in middle school and continuing throughout my high-school career. Every day he did something special with the sandwich. Maybe it was sliced in 4 strips, 9 little squares, or many tiny triangles. Around Halloween he’d “carve” a jack-o-lantern face in the top slice of bread. It wasn’t long before my classmates noticed what he was doing, and people would want to see what special sandwich he’d made each day.
• Dad didn’t buy us all the latest toys. Don’t get me wrong; we had plenty of toys. But we were encouraged to fill in the blanks with our own imaginations. He modeled this by fashioning Star Trek “phaser” guns out of some shaped pieces of wood, with a curtain-rod bracket on top that was loose enough that you could switch from Kill to Stun in an instant. He even made my brother a “communicator” from scraps from some home-improvement project or other, and my sister and I were welcome to plunder the scrap box for wood blocks we could use as Barbie furniture.
• Dad gave us a sense of direction. Once we got our drivers’ licenses and needed to go someplace new, Dad would say, “Let me draw you a map.” Maps were continually spread all over our dining-room table when he planned bicycle trips and family vacations.  Dad, I got my visual-spatial abilities from you. They serve me well in navigating new routes and packing the van for a variety of situations.

Happy 75th birthday to a dad who succeeded as a parent in many ways, big and small! Love you, Dad!

Stop over at CatholicMom.com and share your successes–and enjoy reading about the successes of other moms!