Hit and miss

I heard it down the hallway. "Ow! You're the meanest person EVER!"

I sighed as I heard the door slam. I was pretty sure I knew who was harassing one another without looking. "Anaya! Come here."

One angry-faced girl flounced into the room. "He slapped me!" she wailed.

"Skyler!"

A reluctant face with two smoldering brown eyes appeared in the doorway. "I didn't mean to."

"How did you hit your sister without meaning to?"

"Well," he paused, searching for an explanation. "I tried to miss her, but I missed and accidentally hit her."

Heavenly thoughts about earthly realities

As I tucked him in bed the other day, Skyler said, "Mommy, I'm glad you give us consequences."

Since this was not at all in keeping with his behavioral theme of the day, I had to smother a smile. "Really? Why?"

 "Because if you give me consequences, I know it's because you want me to go to heaven. And getting consequences makes it so I will be more likely to be in heaven."

The theologian developing...

"Mommy," Skyler asked, "What if I think I have confessed all of my sins, but I forgot one? When Jesus comes, will I be able to go to heaven?"

"Don't worry, Sweetheart," I assured him. "You confess everything you know. And you give your heart to Jesus. If you have given Him your whole heart, you are okay."

"Whew! That's good to know!" He paused. "Mommy, I'm so glad Daddy is a pastor, and you are a counselor. That way when I have questions like this, I can ask, and you will tell me the answer. And if I ever forget and stop following Jesus, you will help me."

When you don't need rules, just principles...

Little angels

Tonight I overheard the boys practicing saying Romans 6:23 together from memory. It was unbearably sweet and heartwarming. Then at bedtime, I told the kids it was time to put their Bibles away. I turned out the light, but Skyler immediately disappeared into the bathroom. Seth remained in his bed squinting at his Bible.

"Buddy, you can read tomorrow," I assured him. "It's time to sleep."

"But Mommy, I want to read The Lord's Prayer."

"I will say it to you. You need to sleep now."

"I can say it myself. I already know it," he smiled. "I just like reading it in the Bible."

By this time, Skyler seemed to have grown roots in the bathroom. I was about to knock on the door when he came out of the bathroom, clutching his own little Bible carefully as he turned off the light.

I love my little boys.

Thou shalt not steal

Tonight the boys and I had to stand around for a few minutes in the grocery store after checking out, waiting for Anaya to get out of the bathroom. To pass the time, the boys fiddled with the little toy vending machines. They had no quarters, but he peered hopefully inside each spout for a free toy.

"Mommy! Look!" they suddenly came to me, squealing. "These came out of one of the machines. When we opened it, they were there. We have to tell the lady!" They held out two little plastic capsules full of colored rubber bands.

By "the lady," of course, they meant the cashier where we had just checked out. I took the two capsules to her and explained. "Oh, they can keep them!" she assured me.

I returned to the boys and handed them their treasures.

"Oh wow, Mommy!" they bubbled. "We can keep them?"

"You know what?" Seth's eyes suddenly grew round with horror. "We could have stolen these. If we had just hidden them, we could have sneaked out."

"Yeah," Skyler agreed soberly. "But we would never have enjoyed them. We would feel bad when we looked at them. And you would have seen that we had them and asked us."

"Not necessarily," I admitted. "I might have thought Daddy bought them for you while I was gone. But who would have known?"

"Jesus would," Seth burst out.

"And we would have too," Skyler added. "And we would have felt regret. And then, when Jesus came, we would have had to face the consequences."

I'm so glad their little moral backbones are developing. :)

Misplaced faith in the resurrection

You know how you can be walking through the store, not conscious there is music playing, until some phrase jars you into consciousness of the words? Yeah...that happens in parenting too.

The other day as my small herd clambered into the car, the blur of random jabbering suddenly stopped sounding blurry.

"Is he still dead?"

I'm a believer in the resurrection. I am. And I was very interested in knowing what was potentially being resurrected in my back seat.

"Is WHO still dead?"

The boys seemed surprised I was interested.

"Our calopidder," Skyler volunteered cheerfully. "We had a calopidder that we left in the car."

"He was already dead," Seth assured me. "But we just wanted to see if he would be alive again."