Out of the Mouths of My Babes

This evening our five year old, Ray, fell asleep before mass. One of the teens stayed home and the rest of the family went to mass. While at church, I spoke to a teacher at his school. She told me she just had to tell me what Ray told her the other day.

She is a speech therapist and was screening him on the recommendation of his kindergarten teacher. She told him, "I see you at church."

Ray said, "You mean the one with Jesus?" and she said, "Yes."

So Ray replies with all seriousness, "We don't go there anymore. We decided to go to a church WITHOUT Jesus."

The teacher got a good laugh out of it.

The reason behind this is I allow the kids to attend the Wednesday night activities at the local Methodist church and Ray likes it because it is mostly play as compared to sitting still in mass for an hour. Sometimes he does stay home from mass because, like tonight, he fell asleep. Poor kid! Imagine, a church or a life without Jesus.

One day last spring we were in the car line to pick up my middle school child. My first and third graders were already in the car. Elle, my six-year-old, says,"Momma, when was I born."

I thought for a moment, because she has known her birthday for several years. So I turned around and looked at her and said, "You know. July 30." 

Elle's eyes get wide and her mouth comes opened and she says, "Really?! On my birthday! Wow! How was I born on my birthday!?"

She knew when her "birthday" was but she hadn't connected the word "Birth"day to actually being born. To my special little Elle, a birthday was just her appointed day for cake and presents.

Max is twelve now, but when he was about one and a half, and had just starting talking he asked for something to left over from a previous meal. I told him, "Let's go get it. It's in the refrigerator."

We went and got his food. I warmed it, he ate it and all was well. A couple of days later someone wanted to know where the plums were. Max had helped me with grocery shopping that day, so he told them, "I know! They're in the Fridge-for-later."

That was our word for the refrigerator for the next 5 years or so. It's not a refrigerator. It's a Fridge-for-later!

When Elle was about two, we were often exclaiming, "Eleanor Clare!"

Elle had a penchant for trouble. She was either writing on the walls (the cutest smiley faces. It was really hard to get mad!) or she was spilling sugar, getting into makeup or fingernail polish of mine or my older daughters. It was really just moving from one mess to the next. "Eleanor Clare!" was a steady refrain.

One weekend afternoon we were all at home and Elle and Madde (4) were playing with markers and paper at the table. Madde felt like being a little devil, so she reached down and drew a mark across Elle's picture.

Elle looks up with an incredulous look on her face and screams, "Maddenor Clare!"

Of course, Madde's name is Madelene, not Maddenor... but in Elle's world that's what you said when you were angry!

It was a hoot!

When my now 17 year-old daughter was about 3, she and my three older children went to stay with my aunt for about a week. She's a brave lady. The kids were 2 boys, 7 and 6, 2 girls 4 and 3. They were good and had been busy. One day they went to the zoo. After they returned to my Aunt Shelah's house, she fed them lunch and told them to go lay down and rest so she could rest, too. While they were resting, my aunt had a shot of whiskey. 

Abby has always been grumpy when waking up, so she came downstairs and crawled in Aunt Shelah's lap. Abby looked up at her with innocent little eyes and said, "You smell like the body of Christ!"

We all thought this was hilarious. At three she didn't understand that she was smelling alcohol, like what is in communion wine.