treasures

One of the things I love the most about being an at-home mom is getting to catch the "out of nowhere" questions that my boys throw at me. Mostly, that Ian throws at me. They are usually hysterically funny, or, the deepest things you want to be able to convey, with no prep time.

For example: thrown into a simple discussion about what happened at preschool that day, "mommy, does every part of you die when you die?" I explained to him that our bodies die and go away into the ground, but that our souls will go to heaven to be with Jesus. I tried to explain that his soul is "him". His heart and mind and who he is. I hope that message came through clearly. He asked more specifics... will his eyes die? what about his nose? etc. etc. and I answered yes, every part of your body, but not your heart and mind - those will be with God. He seemed satisfied and settled into his nap then.

Can I just say I am so thankful to God and to my husband that I get to be home for these moments! These are the type of questions that I want to be there for and answer or try to answer myself. The moments come and go quickly. I'd hate to miss that.

Here's another example I've been trying to remember all of... because this was a much more long and involved, (and correspondingly meaningful) conversation. Early in the discussion he said something like "Mommy, I love you and Daddy and Caleb. I love every one in our family. I love Jesus too." I asked, "Ian, did God love you first, or did you love God first?" He thought for a couple minutes and then said "God loved me first. Then I found out about Jesus and then I just started loving him more and more." Often my bedtime questions are met with silly responses, so at that point I knew he was ready to have one of our talks. We read through the 23rd Psalm (an inspiration from Kelle - whose blog I highly recommend, linked to the right, for mom insights and for glimpses of the life of a soldier in Afghanistan.) and when I finished Ian asked "what does anoint my head with oil" mean? I tried to explain... probably not well... but part of the explanation was about symbols. I ended up giving him the example of my wedding ring to try and explain symbols. Then he asked, "will you tell me a story about your wedding?" After some questions about what he meant I realized he wanted to know about how we decided to get married.

The story telling went something like this:
Well Ian, Daddy and Mommy met when they were in college at Miami. First we were friends (yeah, you liked to be together and have fun)
Yes, and then we became very good friends and then we fell in love with each other.
(you smiled a lot?)
Yes, we wanted to spend a lot of time together and we were very happy. Then after a while Daddy asked me to marry him, and I said yes! That's when he gave me the first part of my ring. So then we planned a wedding and we got married, and then I had the other part of my ring.
(And then I came along, right?)
No, not quite, that took a bit longer.
(Well what happened right after your wedding?)
Well, we went on our honeymoon.
(what's that?)
We went on vacation together.
(And you stayed overnight?)
We stayed for a week, and yes, that was the first time that we stayed overnight together. Can I tell you something else that's very special Ian?
(yeah)
Before Daddy asked mommy to marry him, back when we were starting to think we were in love, do you know what we did?
(what?)
We prayed Ian.
(yeah, you talked to God)
Yes, Daddy prayed to God and asked what God wanted us to do, and He felt like God showed him that we were supposed to get married. And I prayed too and asked God, and I also felt that God wanted us to get married. Isn't that special?
([very excited], yeah!)
We also talked to our parents, and grandma and grandpa thought that we should get married, and so did Mamaw and Papaw too.
(yeah, and then you got married and had me!)
Well, yes, something like that. :-)

I apologize to those of you who are sticklers about punctuation. I know my posts are awful that way. Usually I am trying to just get out whatever it is that's been percolating in my brain, and once I'm finished I have no time to edit for punctuation. Like right now. I've got to get ready for swim lessons.

But first, one of the more amusing moments from last night: Matt was leaving for a meeting and gave me a hug and kiss goodbye. Ian was standing there bouncing around us in his usual "daddy is home in the evening" excitement. He says, "Mommy and Dadddy, you are both wearing my favorite color! Daddy's wearing dark red and Mommy's wearing light red and that's my favorite color and you're both wearing red, and you just can't get apart from each other!"

Not sure if he was thinking that the redness was keeping us together or if he was trying to say we should stop kissing already...