Sweet Memories, What Are These Kids Talking About?

Note: At this time, Caleb was six, Rebecca five and Sarah four.

May 5, 1996: Yesterday Caleb came into our room and said, "The other day a kid said a really bad word at school." "What was it?" I asked, worried what he might have heard at school. "Shut up," Caleb whispered with concern.

 We took the kids to a Wranglers (minor league in Wichita) baseball game last night. We had talked to them a lot about how much fun it would be. We were there a little early, so that soon after the first inning started, Sarah asked me, "Is the game almost over?" A little later she told me, "Mommy, your watch says it's time to go home." Rebecca, about the same time said to Murray, "When will the game be done?" Murray answered “not for a while yet,” and she said, "When will we have fun?"

We had vegetable noodle soup for supper, and when Murray took the lid off, and Sarah saw it, she said, a little sadly, and a little indignantly, "I don't like many color soup."

Caleb just said that his stomach hurt. I suggested he could sit down for a minute, on the couch or the rocking chair or something. He said hopefully, "Or I could sit on your lap."

May 10, 1996: Caleb usually takes his lunch to school, but yesterday he had a hot lunch. When he came home, I asked him what he'd had for lunch. Enthusiastically, he replied, "Oh, Mommy, that's a good question!" And he told me what he had.

May 17, 1996: Sarah got a cut on her finger from a piece of paper yesterday, so she told Murray she had a "Paper clip" on her finger.

Rebecca wrote Murray a note in school today. I asked her to read it to me, and she said she couldn't read it because she'd just written a bunch of lines, with each line having a bunch of just one letter. She said it was a "joke note" and giggled excitedly.

I was just hugging Sarah while she lay on the couch. I was looking at her face, and told her it was a wonderful face, and asked if she would give it to me. She asked, "Will we still have our heart when we give it to Jesus?" I said yes. She said, "Then if I give you my face, I'll still have it." And she said she'd give it to me.

May 26, 1996: The other day we were praying for Frank (a friend whose wife died) that he wouldn't be too sad. And Sarah said that Donna wasn't dead anymore; she said Donna is alive in Heaven with Jesus.

Today Rebecca brought Deborah to Rhoda (a new cat to an old cat) and put their noses together. Murray asked if she was trying to get them to be friends. She said, "Yes. I'm visiting them."

At lunch today, Murray asked Sarah to pray, and to pray about a lot of things. Sarah said, "Dear God, thank You for everything and everything and everything, and everything. Amen."

June 3, 1996: Country Side Christian Church invited our church to come there for a picnic the other day. We were singing, and one of the songs we sang was "You came from Heaven to Earth to show the Way." Sarah said, "We have that song at our church. Maybe they love Jesus."

June 14, 1996: Tonight at supper, Caleb said, "Oh, I forgot about tomorrow! My cats are coming back." We have no idea what he's talking about.

June 17, 1996: Last night we, again, had a hard time getting the kids to go to sleep, especially the girls. After we were in bed, Sarah came and knocked on our door, and said she wanted to ask us a question, hypothetically, it seemed. She said innocently, "What would happen if there was a sister and another sister, and they were talking, and a Mommy and a Daddy told them to be quiet, and they kept talking?" We could hardly stop laughing.

June 21, 1996: Sometimes I've told the kids things like "Cut it out"and "Knock it off" when I wanted them to stop something. The other night Rebecca was talking to Caleb: "Stop it. Cut it out. Knock it down." After Murray smacked Sarah on her cute head with the Values section of the newspaper, Sarah also said to him, "Knock it down."

At lunch today, Rebecca asked me, "Why can't brothers and sisters marry each other?" I kept saying that they just couldn't, and she kept asking why. Finally I said it was against the law; the police say no. She asked, "What would the police do to you?" I said I didn't know, and she asked, "Can Caleb and I try it out?"

June 22, 1996: Rebecca has marriage on the brain these days. Last night she told Rodney, "When I grow up, I'm gonna marry you." (Rodney is my brother.)

We had pork 'n’ beans for supper. Sarah asked what pork was, and I explained what it was and that there wasn't really any meat in there, they just called it that for fun, and someone said it was pretend meat. Sarah asked, "But are there really beans?"