Each and Every Letter

I wrote this post a few years ago but never published it. Our church is in the middle of a series called, “Rewrapping Christmas,” and we’ve been challenged to give a different kind of gift this year – a gift of time, a gift of being present with your family, a gift of benevolence, etc. So I resurrected this one out of the drafts. 

My 4-year-old asks approximately 8,457 questions a day.

Within seconds of waking up, the “question count” can reach anywhere from 3 to 12.

“Where’s Daddy?” “What day is today?” “Do I go to school today?” “Where’s Daddy?” “Can you get me started on breakfast?” “Can I watch something?” Where’s Daddy?”

By the time we’re done with breakfast, we’ve easily reached no fewer than 100 questions.

“What day is today?” “Can we go for a walk?” “Can I watch something?” “Where’s Daddy?”  “Why?” “Can we go to the park?” “Can I watch something?” “Can I ride my bike?” “What are we eating for dinner?” (Yes, this question gets asked at breakfast.) “Why?” “Do we have church tonight?” “When is Daddy coming home?” “Can I watch something?” “Why?”

Between breakfast and lunch, I get asked “Why?” approximately 3,962 more times…

Honest Answers

My strategy with the always-streaming 4-year-old questions is to answer every single one of them as bluntly and honestly as possible. It’s the only way to even begin to battle the abundant supply of stubborn that overflows from my tiny human.

“Can we go to the park?” “No.”

“Why?” “Because it’s too wet.”

“Why?” “Because it rained this morning.”

“Why?” “Because it’s springtime and it rains a lot in the spring.”

“Why?” “Because condensation in the air forms clouds and when the clouds get heavier than the air around them, it causes rain.”

“Why?” “Because God made it that way...”

And that goes on until bedtime…

God Questions

Lately, we’ve been getting a lot of God questions. This started around Christmas time. Abigail was in a Christmas program at school and learned a song called “Happy Birthday Jesus.” She sang it all day, every day and knew every word by heart.

Abigail LOVES a birthday party. She loves picking out presents for her friends and she loves watching people open presents. So Christmas was a big deal for her this year. She loved helping pick out presents for cousins and grandparents. And she loved the idea that all the excitement of the season was because this guy Jesus was having a birthday.

After opening presents at our house, we packed up to head to my parent’s house to celebrate with family. We told her we were going to celebrate Jesus’ birthday when we got there. She was so excited. She got a wild look in her eyes and asked,

“Is Jesus going to be at Nonny and GB’s house when we get there?”

It’s exciting to get to talk to your kid about Jesus. It’s also awkward to tell your kid about a man who is always with you at your house even though you can’t see Him, but He can always see you. Just the other night she asked me to hand her an Ariel doll that she plays with in the bathtub. When I did, she asked if God helped me get Ariel for her. Um…sure?

Recently, after bedtime prayers, Abigail asked (with slight exasperation) if God was EVER going to come to our house for dinner. Well, baby, remember God is always with us, but He’s invisible.

“What’s invisible?”

It means we can’t see Him.

“Can God walk?”

9:00pm might not be the best time to start talking to a 4-year-old about the inner workings of the heavenly realm and how God is a spiritual being so He doesn’t have a body like ours unless you’re talking about Jesus while He was on the earth and in that case…

What Are We Going to Do For Them?

But my favorite question by far came just the other day. We walked outside to get the mail. We had a few pieces of junk mail, a postcard, and one large, brown paper bag. The paper bag was for a food drive collection happening in our community and the postcard explained what we needed to do with the paper bag. Abigail had never seen a paper bag in the mailbox before so she was excited and curious and assumed it was “her mail.”

She started in with the questions. “Why?” “What is it for?” “What do we do with it?”

Like I said, my strategy with the question bombardment is to answer honestly. As we walked back into the house, I wondered what a 4-year-old might think about filling this paper bag up with food from our pantry. I wondered if she could understand need when she had always had plenty. I wondered if she could learn to develop a sense of compassion in her miniature body. I wondered all this in the five steps in between our front door and the stairs.

I opted for honesty. I didn’t want to scare her, but I also wanted her to know the truth about the world. (At least a little of it…)

I sat her down on the stairs and let her hold the paper bag. I made sure I had her attention. Not an easy task! I wanted her to know we were talking about something important. I talked about the grocery store. She loves the grocery store. She loves to “help” me with the list, she loves to remind me of things we need (milk!), and she loves to point out all the things that other kids in her class bring in their lunches that she thinks she should also bring. “Lily always has this.” We’re not getting it. “Why?”

So I told her about the grocery store. About how when we go to the grocery store, we pick out all the things we want to eat, right? And when we’re at home, we can go to our pantry and pick out any snack we want. And even if we’re out of one of our favorite snacks, we always have another kind of snack that we like. We always have plenty of food, right? She nodded…

Then I told her that some little boys and girls can’t do that. Some families don’t have enough money to buy all the food they want. Sometimes they can’t even buy all the food they need and some little boys and girls, even right here in our town, maybe even in our neighborhood, are hungry sometimes because they can’t go to the grocery store and get all the food that they need. And they can’t play like they want to because they don’t have enough to eat.

I could tell by the look on her face that something had clicked. And she said,

“Mama, WHAT are we going to do for them?”

A Heart that Gives

Those parenting moments where you know you’ve done the right thing, said the right thing, hit the parenting nail on the head…those moments are few and far between. But at that moment, I was glad I chose honesty. Even though it was heavy. It struck a chord in her little heart.

Together we filled up that brown, paper bag. Abigail went through our pantry like a hurricane, sweeping the shelves clean. She even offered up her Secret Life of Pets fruit snacks. She gave.

Something stirred in that tiny heart that usually only has to think about which color crayon to use or which episode of Doc McStuffins to watch. And she gave.

I think our little people are capable of much more than we often give them credit for. When appropriate, I’ll keep choosing honesty. I’ll keep making her aware of the hurts and needs around her and let God stir her tiny heart to give.