It's easy for me to know I'm beautiful, at least on the inside. There's one test that never ever fails.

The test is simple, and effective. It's fail proof. It can't lie, it won't lie, it barely knows how.

The test is a child.

I realized this today sitting down for dinner. We'd had a long long day, getting the store ready for a warehouse sale we're having this weekend and next. It was 9:30 at night, we're exhausted from painting and wallpapering and cleaning, so we stop at this Chinese restaurant for dinner. We kinda know the dynamics of the family, we've eaten there a few times, small place, always the same people, all family owned.

But tonight... There was a little boy that couldn't have been more than 4-5 years old. The cutest, funniest, friendliest little boy I have met in AGES. They came here... from... China lol and so he doesn't speak a whole lot of English but he's picked up quite a bit, especially phrases he hears his mom say a lot. (His favorites were "hot plate," "hello/hi," "be careful," "fried rice," and "goodbye, have nice day" lol So sweet.)

And, being the only people in there besides the family, which we had interrupted dinner (hate that), we were vastly more interesting than anything else lol He and dad talked quite a bit, he showed dad drawings and of course gave us warnings of how hot the [empty] plates were lol

He was jabbering away in his half English half Chinese way of talking, and I was giggling SO hard because, as we all know, little boys LOVE to help mommy do their work!... while positioning themselves directly under mama's feet lol I was getting so tickled by him I could barely keep myself together.

Then after "mom" has brought out my soup, the the little boy (Tony) zips off some little sentence in Chinese and I can't tell if he's just talking like some little boys do, or if he's actually talking lol And mom asks him something and he repeats it and she turns and says to me, "Oh, he says you're very beautiful." I laugh and give a big smile and say, "Well thank you!"

Here I am, sweaty, dirty, covered in paint and wallpaper glue and a little boy tells me I'm beautiful. I truly am convinced little children look straight past everything, right into your eyes and see your soul. It was the best experience I've had in ages. Being told by a 4-5 year old that I'm "very beautiful" was definitely the highlight of my day. I'll be smiling for days lol