From the Mouths of Babes

The boys and I have had a great night of discussion on the way home from church. I must share for the sake of posterity :)

First, when we got out of the van from church, Canon noticed the stars for us. "Look Mommy, there are wots and WOTS of stars!"

We decided to take our before-bed time on a sheet in the backyard, looking at the stars. When Ty found what he determined was a "slow shooting star" (aka, an airplane) that had "four wishing stars with it!" , he had to come up with his four wishes.

These were his wishes on the fly,

1. That Zach and Maggie could come over alot (some friends from church)

2. That his sword (which he is currently grounded from because of hitting the dog and his little brother with it) was made of plastic so it would not hurt when he hit people (hmm, perhaps lesson not learned?). And, that it would also turn into a gun :)

3. That all the animals, besides dinosaurs, would be nice. When I asked why all the animals besides dinosaurs, he amended his wish and then wished for all the animals to be nice.

4. That everything around us could be alive, "like the house, our van, and the library."

Okay. I thought those were pretty good, and clearly he had considered it because he spit those out with little to no effort :)

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During bedtime reading time, Ty suggested that he would act out the bible story he heard in bible class tonight.

He started of by demonstrating how to be a statue, then asking me to pose like he had. I played along, and posed as instructed. Then, he got down on his knees and bowed down to me. I asked if he was worshipping me, the statue. He was excited I got that (I personally enjoyed it more than I should have :).

"Are you supposed to do that?" I asked. "No!" he shook his head emphatically.

"Who are you?" I asked. "The Israelites", he explained.

Feeling like I knew where this was going, I asked some more leading questions. I was off though, because I was having a hard time understanding what story he was talking about. He asked if this story was in our bible story book. "I dont know, yet. You need to tell me more about the story..cause there are several where the Israelites are worshipping idols".

This is where he got really expressive and in a very "boy" way, said "This is the story where the girl takes a GIANT nail and uses a hammer to put that nail in a guys HEAD while he was sleeping and there was BLOOD all over his face!"

Geez, I gotta go back and remember how those two things were connected. And, I guess now that we moved up to the kindergarten class gone are the innocent little cute bible story characters that can be made into cartoons :)

"Well, no, that story is not in this bible story book." I said, thank goodness.

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We had lots of cuteness tonight because while Ty was acting out his violent, apparently "awesome" story (what do I have coming to me?!) Canon caught on and had to join in.

He exclaims loudly, "I am GOD! And I am gonna knock down ALL the walls!"

"Oh, you are GOD?" I asked, quite impressed with this one. I cant say I ever tried to imagine I was God as a kid.

"Yes, I am gonna knock down those walls!" he says, while making his voice as low as an almost 3-year old can, and puffing out his chest.

He walked over the a pile of pillows and demolished them. Then, he realized that in this role he could not do his favorite part (the loudest one) of the story. So, he told Ty he was God, and that he was gonna be Joshua and gonna blow his horn :)

Ty was ready for the role, so he told Canon to march around the wall, "7 times!" "now, stop!" "now blow your horns!" "now, shout!" Then, he jumped off the couch and with sound effects destroyed the "walls" of Jericho :)

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As I sit here writing all this great stories down, smiling at my smart little men, I am overwhelmed with gratefulness for the community of Believers that God has gently placed us amongst. Because of my fellow sisters and brothers, God is real to these boys. Sure, we read our bible stories and work on biblical principles in our home. But, I know that were it not for whomever spent all that time painting hundreds of boxes grey so that they would resemble a wall for VBS, whomever figured out how to string all those boxes together so that they would fall all at once when some hidden servant pulled them, the teachers during VBS/Sunday morning class/Sunday night class/Wednesday night class ...my kids would be missing out on some great story telling.

I mean, I would have kept the story about a girl driving a stake into the head of a guy who was doing bad things for when he was thinking about leaving the house and dating :)

Good thing I am not doing this thing on my own :)