Number 12, Bully and Thief OR A Theological Discussion with a Three Year Old

This morning as I was working with Lainey on her math lessons, she came out with a story that made me think, "Oh, I've got to write some of this one down." We were working on numbers before and after a certain number and her book was calling them "next door neighbors". She liked this idea a lot as their examples had little houses drawn around the numbers. The book would give the number in the middle and she had to figure out which number went on either side. I started asking her what number lived next door. We got to the number 11 and I asked, "Who lives next to 11?" She said, "12. Who bullies him." I said, "Oh, 12 bullies 11? Why does he bully 11?" She said, "Because 11 is rich." I said, "Oh, is 12 jealous of 11's money?" She said, "Yes, and one night 12 came in and robbed 11, but 11 was only pretending to be asleep so he could really see 12. There was a really big fight. And then the next night, 11 went over and robbed 12 and got his money back." I asked her who lived on the other side of 11 and she said, "10. Sometimes 11 bullies him because he's smaller than 11 and 12 are." Where does she come up with this stuff? A little while later as she was doing a word problem involving subtraction, she looked at me and said, "My brain works like a computer!" She does make me laugh!

One of Sarah Grace's favorite possessions is a Gideon Bible Lainey got at the fair a couple of years ago. She had it last night and was looking through it and said, "The wonderful things God can do." What a blessing to hear God's praise coming from such little ones. She continued reading and at one point told me that she was on chapter N and later chapter T. She said, "Is this where Daddy preaches?" I told her it was. She said, "Can you find me the place where he preaches?" I told her that he preaches from the whole thing. She said, "Oh, the whole thing? That's a really long way!" She then said, "Is this all about God? Yes. "Is this all about Jesus?" Yes. "Is it all God's fault?" Translated: Did God do everything? I said, "Well, God made everything." She said, "Did God make Pull-ups?" I said, "Well, God made the people who made Pull-ups and He helped them to know how to make Pull-ups." "How do they make Pull-ups?" Theological discussion over. Oh well, baby steps I suppose!