uh...what?

Close your eyes. Imagine that you are taking care of your one year old's nappy/daiper needs while your four year old reads a picture book to herself. There is music in the background and you play peek-a-boo with the 'baby' as you listen to a story about a hen who goes to a "fall fair" and wins a ribbon. "What's a jack-o-lantern?" asks Miss 4. "It's a pumpkin with a face cut out and a candle inside it," you reply (knowing that you've had this conversation before and that she's looking at a picture of the jack-o-lantern) "Remember S L had one at church one day for the children's talk, and she lit a candle to put inside it?" "Oh right," she says.


You continue to play with the baby and listen to the music while Miss 4 sits silently contemplating the picture for at least another couple of minutes...

"Why does God screw our heads off and scrape our insides out?"

...

Well. Thank goodness I could actually remember what the children's talk of some months ago had been about. It was something along the lines of God taking out the bad stuff in our lives, like hurt and bitterness etc etc (like the seeds - which for me was the weakest point of the analogy - I like pumpkin seeds) and replacing it with his light to shine out.

Not the nightmare vision conjured up by Miss4's imagination.

A perfect example of why it is very very handy to actually be there when your small child is learning stuff - it so often comes back for re-interpretation. In strange and unusual ways. Months down the track.