The Eclectic Dabbler

My daughter Mara Joy has always been quite the conversationalist. And as the oldest child, she and I have always talked about everything.

So early on, I talked to her about God’s love for her and told her that Jesus died for her on the cross. We read Bible stories together most every day, and over the past two months or so, she has asked more and more questions and expressed her desire to go to heaven and be with Jesus. She’s asked me how she can stop doing bad things. She has told me how much she loves God and wants to obey Him. So she and I have recently had many conversations about the foundational truths of the Gospel.

Micah is also a little conversationalist–It’s just that I can’t understand 90% of his jabber yet! Plus his attention span is much shorter. His questions much less complex. In fact, while he often asks to pray (several times throughout the same meal and other random times), I don’t know that He’s ever said ‘God’ or ‘Jesus’ at all. I have often prayed for him, told him how much God loves him, and how I pray that he will grow to be a man that loves God more than anything else. But I don’t think I’ve shared the Gospel with him in a deeper way.

That’s okay–his sister did! The other night at dinner, I just listened to this (one-sided) conversation between my three-year-old daughter and her 20-month-old brother:

“Jesus loves you, Micah, and He died for you on the cross. And we want you to love God and obey God, but you do lots of bad things. But God will still love you, even though you do bad things.”

I don’t know how much (if any) of this Micah was really comprehending, but I was amused that her intensity in conversation was matched by his intensity in expression: his jaw literally hung open as he sat there in his high chair, listening to her soliloquy.

“This is really important, Micah,” she finished.

Up until this point, I sat silently, wondering how she would explain these truths, and marveling at the ease with which she shared them.

Then Mara turned to me: “I told Micah all about God. And I started with the Bible.”

Today the Lord encouraged my heart that perhaps someday He will use my little “disciple” to reach others for Him!  I pray that these truths will be real in Mara’s heart–not just reciting things she’s heard–and that her life (along with her words) will continue to point her younger siblings to Christ!

Even though I haven’t really had time for blogging during the past two months, I jotted down a few Mara quotes now and then. Quotes I wanted to remember. Here are a few:

After we picked up my sister (“Aunt Mary”) at the airport, Mara burst into the house with more enthusiasm than I can describe, exclaiming, “Daddy! Do you want to meet Mommy’s niece?!?!?!?!”

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I’m learning that she picks up on a lot of the things I say, and repeats them.  One day, while my family was here, Mara told me: “Today my day is horrible! My house is not cleaned yet. It is horrible!”

Yikes. Maybe I should be re-defining “horrible” for my daughter.

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Mara’s toys were spread all over the floor, and as she tried to get through, she said, “Excuse me, beads. Can you move along?”

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Recently Micah has been blowing “raspberries” all the time. For some reason, this really irritates Mara. (She calls it “beeping,” as in ‘Micah keeps beeping at me!’) So while she was on the phone with Daddy (who was at work), she said, “I don’t want Micah to be spitting at me and beeping at me. Micah needs to get a spanking. [There was silence on her father's end of the line]. . . Daddy? . . .  ANSWER me!”

Later in the same conversation: “We are sinners! We have sin in our hearts. . . I am reading the Bible, so don’t talk. . . We need GRACE! Come ONNNNNN!!!!!”

Wow.

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My dear friend Stephanie gave Mara her book A Pocket for Corduroy. In the front cover she inscribed, “To Mara Joy. From Kathryn Kuchle [Stephanie's daughter, who is a year older than Mara].” Whenever we read, A Pocket for Corduroy, I read the inscription.

Yesterday morning Mara was going around saying “I’mmmm Kathryn Kuchle! . . . Remember the nice lady that gave me Corduroy?” So I told her that actually Kathryn was a little three-year-old girl, almost the same age as Mara.

Ironically, that day’s mail brought the Kuchles’ Christmas picture! So I showed her Kathryn Kuchle and her little brother Tyler. Mara carried the picture around saying, “Look! It’s Kathryn Kuchle!–She’s cuter than me.” And then she would ask random questions, like, “How do you spell ‘Kathryn Kuchle’?”

Then a couple weeks later, I overheard Mara telling Daniel, “See this chair? It’s from Tyler’s mother. And not Kathryn Kuchle’s brother Tyler’s mother. It’s from the Tyler down the street with the father named Bo.” . . . I just had to laugh, because she doesn’t really even know my friend Stephanie, or her daughter Kathryn, but she still includes them in conversation regularly (even more than I do!).

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Also, this should be obvious, but never tell a toddler about a surprise.

Mara to Aunt Mary: “It’s your birthday! And we have a surprise for you! And we’re going to have CUPcakes!” [It actually wasn't her birthday. We were just going to celebrate while my family was together. So much for the element of "surprise."]

Mara thought for a minute. She is going to be three on Christmas Day, and she equates “birthday” with “Christmas.” So she asked the logical question, since Aunt Mary is clearly old than three: “Will you be four at your birthday on Christmas?”

After Hubby Dear got home from a long-days’-work the other night, I was sharing with him all my aches and pains, pregnancy woes, and trauma the children had inflicted on me in his absence (okay, so I was dumping on him) and suddenly Mara piped up:

“Mommy? You’re not really. . . crying, but you’re being kind of . . . whiney,” my 2-year-old informed me in the most gracious tone you can imagine with a statement like that. “And big girls don’t whine about a thing like that. So you should stop whining.”

After her soliloquy, she stood silently waiting for my response. Once again, my two-year-old had rendered me speechless.

As you might imagine, my husband was smirking with amusement and hesitantly remarked, “She has a point.”

But Mara also keeps Daddy in line.

For instance, she saw that he hadn’t finished the lunch I sent to work with him. So when he came home, she said, “Daddy? You didn’t eat your chicken. And when you don’t eat your chicken and you leave it sitting out all day, then it goes bad and Mommy has to throw it out. So you should really eat your chicken.” She nodded, for emphasis, and added: “You should eat the lunch that Mommy gave you.”

It’s tough being responsible for parents like these when you’re just two years old.

. . . when your two-year-old daughter spits on the floor in her bedroom.

Blatantly, shamelessly spits on her bedroom floor.

I didn’t even have to say anything. I think the appalled look on my face must have told her that behavior was completely unacceptable.

She quickly scuffed her shoe over the spit on the floor and smiled nervously. “Don’t worry, Mom. I cleaned it up with my shoe!”

So, if I die, I guess Mara can raise Micah.

This afternoon, as they were playing, I watched her hand him a toy police car. And then I watched him fling it across the room.

Mara calmly went to pick up the car and brought it back to Micah. (This is a major improvement over some of their previous interactions, let me tell you!)

“The Bible tells us, ‘Be kind to one another,’” she declared emphatically. “Now: ‘Be kind to one another,’ Micah! And take this!” she added, thrusting the police car back into his hands.

He took it.

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Mara (to me): We have a lot of things to do today.
Me (repeating): We have a lot of things to do today?
Mara: Yeah! We have to ice cream shop! We want some ice cream!
She is her father’s daughter!

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Tonight I took some pictures of the kids sitting together in their Halloween PJs. I always tell them “Say [something]” (to get a smile) and tonight I was saying, “Say ‘babyyyyy!’ . . . Say ‘little sisterrrrrrr’!”

But Mara had her own idea. As I’m taking the picture, she’s saying: “We’re potty-trainnnnned!”
I put the camera down. “Why are you saying that?”
“Because we’re potty-trained,” she answered.
“No, you’re potty-trained,” I told her. “Micah is not. He still wears diapers.”
“But I’m potty trained, and you’re potty-trained. And Daddy’s potty-trained.” She looked quite pleased with her conclusion. And said it again: “We’re potty-trainnnnned!”

Oh, my. . . she should be a lawyer for sure.

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Daniel gets off at 8 p.m. tonight, and the Phillies are playing the Yankees tonight in the World Series.

So this morning before Daniel left, we told Mara that, if she took a long nap, she could get up and watch the Phillies when Daddy came home.

I had her go to bed after her bath, just to rest a bit before the game.

As I went to turn out her light, I overheard . . .

Pink Bear (albeit Mara’s voice): “What we going to watch in the morning when Daddy comes home?”
Mara: “Phillies!”
Pink Bear: “Phillies?!?!”
Mara (to me since I stood frozen by the light): “He was asking.”
Me: “Ah. Good night.” I turned out the light and closed the door.