Deliverance

I think the most useful gift our family received this Christmas, unless you count my new camo pajamas (thanks, Dad!), is the highly useful book 801 Questions Kids Ask About God. Importantly, this book contains not only the questions, but suggested answers as well. This has helped us navigate the recent minefield of questions about where, exactly, God and Jesus reside (in the appendix, of course), why we can’t see them (because of the invisibility cloak), and why we talk to them when they don’t talk back (it’s like Jonas’s baby monitor – it only goes one way). I discovered at bedtime the other day, however, that the book does not provide a helpful answer to the question “can I teach God how to shuffle step?” Turns out, the answer to that question is “uh, sure.”

I also have this additional exchange for the record books, which occurred as we were getting ready to go to Target:

Me: Are you ready to go?
Scotlen: Yes, but Mama, you need to bring your money.
Me: Ok. Can you bring your money too?
Scotlen: I can pretend.

I hope she is not one of those callers on the Dave Ramsey show one day with $50,000 worth of pretend money credit card debt. Goodness knows it is entirely possible to rack up that kind of debt on crap from Target.

As for Jonas, he may not be walking and talking just yet, but he has developed a specific taste in music. Kyle played a CD this morning that included the song Dueling Banjos. He ended up playing it repeatedly until they reached their destination, because each time it ended, Jonas reacted like this: