School Days
Candid Campground Talk
We came back from a beach walk one day to find a lady
sitting at the campsite adjacent to ours. Apparently she was staking her claim
while her husband went back to get the permit. Our kids came over the dune and
stood staring at her in surprise.
"Hey, there's a lady there!"
"Why is she just sitting there?"
"Is she going to camp there?"
"Now we can't go through this campsite
anymore!"
Our younger children shouted all this at us as if the
woman herself herself were blind and deaf. I could just see her mentally
counting them: "One...two...three...four... five...! Ack!"
Maurice assured her we were only staying one more
night. :)
Seven-year-old to Five-year-old
7yo: Do you know what a woman is?
5yo: What?
7yo: A woman is a kind of MAN, but it has a WOMB.
That's why it's called a WOMB-MAN."
Dinky Car Church
Jim: Can my guy be an elder?
Anna : No, Jim...
Jim: Pleeeeease, Anna? This guy looks really good as an
elder!
M (to me): Sounds like it's time to review the
qualifications...
Heart to Heart Bedtime Chat
Jim: When I grow up I'd like to be a minister.
Mommy: Why?
Jim: Uh.... (searching for how to express what lay on
his heart, a shy smile slowly spreading across his face) Well, sometimes I
think choich is just a teeny bit too long. I want to be a minister so that I
can make choich just a teeny bit shoyto.
When the Dew of Hermon is Scant
Jim: Willie, you can't have this church. That's your
church.
Willie: Nooo! Dis my church.
Jim: No, Willie, you can't own this church, you have to
have your own church!
Willie: Nooo!
Mommy (never one to miss an opportunity to impart a
good life lesson): Boys, don't fight about church!
Jim: But mom, I don't want his guys in my church! His
cars are doing things I don't like!
Mommy: Okay, you each need to have your own church.
(Hold on a sec, what kind of life lesson is that?)
Mommy: Actually, no, you need to share churches. YOU
WILL BOTH GO TO THE SAME CHURCH. Say 'YES, MOM'! (clearly a much better way to
handle the situation, wouldn't you say? :z)
Jim, dutifully: 'YES, MOM."
Jim again, now in an undertone: Willie, you can only
own the couch part of the church, okay?
Willie starts singing.
Jim: No, Willie, you can't sing THAT song in church,
that is NOT a good church song!
Willie, ignoring him, sings on.
Jim: Willie, WILL-EEEE!
Three-year-old on Splinter Removal
“I know! I can eat food, and the food will go down,
down, down, and push the splinter out!”
Random Musing (overheard in one those those unexpected
silences when the general hum of conversation suddenly ends)
“I wonder how frogs mate..."
Camping Again
We ran out of propane one morning and cooked breakfast
over the fire.
"We can pretend we're pioneers!" the kids
exclaimed.
Back home they'd be saying, "We can pretend we're
camping!" It's always better to pretend than to just enjoy reality.
On Imagination
I came into the kitchen just in time to hear Jo
accusing Anna and Jim, "Sometimes it seems like you guys don't really have
very much imagination."
"You don't have to imagine things aloud to have an
imagination," Anneke pointed out.
"Imagination, " began Jim, with the air of
one launching an impressive statement, "Is my... tenth worst thing. And my
best thing."
I wasn't sure I had imagination enough to wrap my mind
around such a rating.
"Well, I'm imaging things all the time," said
Jo. "Except when I'm doing school."
(I'm not even sure of the exception. But no doubt that
was just a polite-ism added for my benefit.)
"At night I imagine things, " Jim said.
"Sometimes I imagine real life is all a movie, and -"
"- you watch it in fast forward?" supplied
Jo, fast forwarding through Jim's pause.
"...No."
Moms can Imagine, Too
Jo couldn't find his catechism book.
"You have to find it before you can play,"
was the verdict.
He looked and he looked and he looked.
"I can't find it anywhere, Mom!" he
despaired.
I went straight to the front hall, pulled the bench
from the wall, and found it leaning against the wall that had been hidden by
the bench.
"Pretty good, eh?" I bragged.
"Yeah, well, that's because you're a mom," he
said, taking the book, and my finding it so swiftly, in stride.
Something had to be done about his lack of appreciation
for my superior finding skills.
"But why are moms good at finding things?" I
persisted, while he and the catechism book tried to make a casual getaway. I
shot after him: "It's because moms have really good imaginations."
He spun around to look at me, eyebrows reaching for the
ceiling.
"They DO?"
"Yeah," I said, delighted at the impression
my thrust had made. "I had to imagine where you might have left the book,
and I had to imagine that it might have gotten knocked off from that spot and
fallen behind it."
I could see the balloon deflate.
"Oh, that kind of imagination. I don't do that
kind of imagining."
So much for being a cool mom. Apparently imaginings
have to be utterly useless to warrant any particular notice.
Passing Down Seven Years’ Worth of Wisdom Regarding Mommy's
Cooking:
"Jim! Jim! If you don't think about the taste, it
actually tastes yummy."
My Dad is the Handsomest
As M went off to a cadet gym night last Friday in a
tie, we all commented on how handsome he looked.
"My dad is the handsomest!" Said Jo.
"No, MY dad is the handsomest!" said Willie.
"No, my dad is the handsomest!" Jo said back
in typical 8-year-old humor.
They went back and forth thus, and just when M was
exiting with the self-assured laugh of a man who is confident of being
well-loved, Willie put in the final word:
"My dad is the handsomest - and my dad is Uncle
Gorilla."
(Uncle Gorilla is the stuffed gorilla that he takes to
bed each night.)
An Accident
Willie came to me one day saying, "Mommy,
accidentally I broke this."
I looked, and saw he was pointing at his neck.
"But it didn't actually fall off," he said
reassuringly.
Faith of a Child
After praying that the Lord would help him to be good,
I suggested, “Do you want to also pray that God would forgive you?”
“He already did!” Willie said confidently.
“Oh? How do you know?"
“He said that!”
“Did you hear him?” I asked, wondering what was going
on in that mind of his.
“Uh, yeah...” After a moment’s hesitation, he added, “But I couldn’t
hear him very well....”
The Secret Heart of the Warrior
Through the doorway I caught a glimpse of Willie
discovering a photo of baby inside my book. He murmured softly, "Aww, Baby
Barika in her bed. I love you, Barika."
He kissed the picture, then carefully tucked it between
the pages again.
