Preschool Funnies

Some recent conversations in our home (E is our 5-year-old daughter; W and D are our 3-year-old twins). I should put one of these up every day--they're so funny. Are you taking time to really listen to the little people in your lives?

Mommy: "I'm going upstairs to fix my hair."
W (innocently): "Is it broken?"

Mommy: "We're having leftover soup tonight for dinner."
E: "What kind?"
Mommy: "I'm afraid it's the kind you don't like." (cream of turkey and wild rice)
E: "I have a good idea. To make it better, you can stir in yogurt (plain), cheese, and... some cream cheese! That's a good idea, Mommy."

D: "What's green dough, Mommy?" (I have French bread in the oven)
Mommy: "I don't know, D--"
D: "It's broccoli!"

Daddy: "What do you have in your mouth, D?"
D: (tells what it is--I can't remember, but it was definitely NOT something that should have been in his mouth)
Daddy: "Where did you get that, D?"
D: "From my hand."

W: "Mommy"
Mommy: "What?"
W: "Mommy"
Mommy: "What?"
W: "Mommy"
Mommy (in a louder than normal tone...): "What?!"
W: "umm..... " (apparently, he didn't have anything to say....)

W: "Is it raining? Do we need coats?"
Mommy: "It's only a little rainy. You'll be fine without your coat."
W: "It's only a little rainy, Mommy, not a big rainy."

And, finally, a conversation (one among many) in which big sister E instructs one of her little brothers in the vast knowledge of the universe:
D: "The moon is the sun! I see the moon!"
E: "The moon is not the sun." (with finger raised) "Listen to me: I will tell you all about the moon. The moon is a circle and it's full. The moon is light. It's a round circle."
D: "OH" (like this is the most significant thing he's ever heard) "What is the sun?"
E: "The sun is different." (in a funny little 'instructing' voice) "It's very hot--so hot it will burn your finger if you touch it."
D: "Oh, and if I get really tall and touch the sun and it will burn my finger off and Mommy will help me and..." (I lost the rest of that strain)

Acorns and Sin

The kids and I got out to enjoy the gorgeous weather yesterday and to do one of my all-time favorite gardening tasks: clearing away some of winter's dead leaves and twigs to make room for new, growing plants. I always have a Secret Garden moment where I want to chant "clear it away so the plants can breathe!"

But I was also struck yesterday with the image of the sprouting acorn and sin (no, I'm not talking about the temptation to sin after pulling up the 100th sprouted acorn...). Rather, I was mulling over how urgent it is that I pull up all sprouting acorns this week. If we wait, they'll be impossible to pull up by hand by next week. If we wait until spring is in full force, we'll have to dig them out with a shovel. If we wait longer, then we just have to live with the newest oak tree in the yard. Much as I cherish our gigantic oak tree in the front yard, the acorns it drops are perilous bullets in the fall and much dreaded vehicles of hardest-weeds-ever-to-pull-up. Have you ever tried to pull up a sprouting acorn?

Trees grow these amazing taproots that reach way down in the soil and are super strong, even in their infancy. It's a miracle of creation when you think about that tiny acorn becoming the giant oak. But it's also a terrific picture of what happens when we let sin take root in our lives, isn't it? Of what happens when we don't nip it in the bud--in ourselves or in our children....

So that's what I was mulling over as I yanked up hundreds of sprouting acorns in the midst of clearing away winter's deadness so my baby daffodil shoots can breathe, so we can see the blooming lenten roses, and so we can enjoy the purple and yellow crocuses.