The minds of children

Sometimes I wish I could see into the minds of my children, to understand why they say and do some of the things they do. Even if I haven't a clue where some of these things come from, it's still quite funny at times.

Take Meagan. Yesterday as I was driving back from taking Bethany to school, I heard her talking in a stern voice to one of her legs, chastising it for bumping the other one. Then in a soothing voice, she said to the other one, "There, there, it's okay," over and over. It was really hard not to just start laughing at her.

Nate also told me something funny she did when he took her to a fish store last Saturday. He held up in front of a tank of crayfish, and when she asked, he told her what they were. She said, "Crayfish are scary." So he tried to take her away to look at something else, but she refused to budge. She just wanted to look at the crayfish, all the while repeating that they were scary. Strange.

Bethany's come up with a few fun ideas lately, too. Okay, not really fun for me, but they had a blast. Yesterday, they fought so much during the day, that I was getting really frustrated with them. Between that and Sean fussing, I was having a hard time getting anything done. By the time I was trying to cook dinner, I was pretty wiped out. Fortunately, they disappeared in their room and finally quit fighting. I heard all sorts of bangings and crashes and other assorted noised coming from the room, but since no one was screaming in pain, I just ignored it to work on dinner. Nate came home, dinner was ready, and I called them to the table. Bethany came bounding down the hall, proudly proclaiming, "It's a big party! I made a big party!" Out of curiousity, I went to see what her 'big party' was. They'd emptied almost every toy from the various drawers and shelves in their room and piled them all on Meagan's bed. The mound was so big, there's no way Meagan could've gone to bed even if she'd wanted to. Hmm...maybe this means they have too many toys. Whatever. It was a big mess, but at least it was all contained on the bed, and not strewn everywhere, and it kept them happily occupied until dinnertime.

On Sunday, we pulled up to the church, and Bethany declared, "It's snowing!" I looked up at the sunny sky, and couldn't figure out what she was talking about, until I looked forward. The pear tree in front of the van was shedding petals from its myriad blossoms, so much so that it did really look like it was snowing. It took Bethany getting out of the car and looking at the tree close up to believe me that it wasn't snowing, though.

Oh, speaking of Bethany and Meagan fighting, they've had some really interesting ones lately. They've entered the "nuh-uh" and "yuh-huh" phase. The thing is, though, that I wonder if Meagan really understands what those words mean, because sometimes she says them back to back in the middle of an argument. Anyway, the other day at breakfast, Bethany burped and said "Excuse me." Meagan thought it was funny and fake burped, just so she could say it, too. So Bethany hollers, "Not you, me!" "Nuh-uh, yuh-huh!" "No, me!" It was a very silly argument.

Bethany also insists that she's a boy and yesterday she told me she was going to fly. At least she's also saying that she wants Sean to "live at our house all of the time" now, instead of wanting him to go back to the doctor.

Yes, I wish I could see inside their minds.