[$] This is why kids are a blessing

My parents are flying in this week, and we spent last week trying to get our lives into some semblence of order so that when they come they will have a happy view of our lives. They are the kind of people that take any sign of disorder as a clarion call to worry about catastrophe, so we let them live in the illusory world that everything is perfect in order to keep them from dying early.

So last week, my wife had to keep our daughter at the bookstore with her for an afternoon because of the way things worked out. And my kids are champs: they have what we call "bookstore manners", which means that instead of acting like monkeys while they have to spend a couple of hours at the store with Mom or Dad, they act like they understand that the bookstore is going to pay for their college education.

So my 4-year-old is playing quitely in the children's area of the store, apparently having a tea party with all the plush animals from the baby gifts table, and she runs up to the front of the store, grabs something off the Church Supply display, and runs to the back again. My wife didn't take much notice because that's how the girl is: she gets an urge, runs like the dickens to fulfill that urge, and then runs back to what she was doing.

Mind you: she doesn't run to do what you tell her to do, but that's another blog entry.

Anyway, after a couple of minutes, my wife hears the tinkling of glass back in the children's area, which is never a good thing -- it wasn't breaking glass, but you have to intervene early to make sure it doesn't become breaking glass when you hear what appears to be a toast to the health and well-being of Germaine Giraffeson and his lifelong confidants.

So my wife gets back into the children's area, and there's the girl with her tea party friends -- using the portable Communion set we sell (the one with 6 glass commnion tumblers and the plastic squirt bottle to fill the tumbles) for her tea service.

"[innocent child], what are you doing?" asks my wife in a sort of June Cleaver kind of way.

"Mommy," says [innocent child], "I finally found out what this is for!"

"What's it's for, sweetie?"

"Mommy: this is Jesus's lunch box!"





Now I ask you: was she actually wrong?