Just when you think they are not listening...

I admit it. I have a good 27 years on my 4 year old but sometimes she just flat out outsmarts me. It does tend to strike me as funny.....at first. Then I realize more of what just happened and a lot of the time that  she is infact correct in a literal sort of way and I just don't know what to say. (By literal sometimes its an Amelia Bedelia sort of way rather than an actual correct sort of way)

I could list one after another examples here but here is just one that has really gotten me thinking.

Yesterday Annaka was playing and she decided to 'put on a show for me'. Since I have been sick and in the bed mostly the past month and a half I was happy she was using her imagination rather than just sitting beside me playing uno or coloring. She stood up in her clappy shoes and showed me her skills of how to throw a little pink basketball aiming for the pink section of her dresser all while singing a tune she made up. Then she hid behind the dresser and said it was one of her husbands turn to do an act.

Hmm. "How many husbands do you have?"

"Two"

Hmmmmmm. "Do you know what God thinks about husbands and wives?" We go on to talk about how God wants us to marry one person and stay married to them for our whole lives!

She listened politely and as soon as I finished a few sentences she immediately, as if pulling something from the little file cabinet of her brain, blurted out...

"Well Jacob married two girls...they were sisters"


Ummm, wow. She does know the Bible story. It is not one that we have read recently so she had to pull pretty deep in that little file cabinet to get that fact.

It amazes me because some nights while reading her Bible story it seems as if she is not listening. She cant sit still, wont look at the page, etc. She can always answer the questions at the end which is why I don't mind if she is squirming a little bit.

It is actually a bit scary as well. Giving me a reality check. She soaks in everything. EVERYTHING. No matter if it is something we say, do, the way we look at each other, everything. She not only takes it in and repeats it like a parrot, she now processes it and applies it. I need to do a better job at making sure she understands HOW to apply it to her little life.

I enjoy our little conversations. I love that they are very two way and even better than that, I never know what is coming on the other end. As I am trying to explain what a word means she ends up telling me instead showing that she knows it already. Sometimes she just gets us to giggle as she shouts something unexpected. As she was using Clint's back as a slide the other day she laughs and says "I am totally keeping you Papa"

Just when we think they are not listening, they show us they heard every word...spoken or not.