Nana, where do they go?

Song Stuck on the Brain: Take Back the City by Snow Patrol


I suppose I should have a Hannah Montana song stuck on the Brain since I bought it this weekend too. I gave it to my niece Emily who is the biggest 'Hannah Matanna' (as she says) fan I've seen yet. While her mom and my other sister and I all went to take care of some chores, Emily stayed with Nana and listened to her new CD. (Nana wasn't all that excited by it, but Emily loved it.)

After the CD was done, they took it out and put it back in it's case. Emily turns to Nana and says, "Where do the people go when it's all over?"

"What do you mean?" Nana asks.

"When the music is done, where do the people go? Do they just freeze until you play it again?" She strikes a pose, hands in the air and freezes, eyes wide open.

"No." Nana says chuckling. "It's just a recording of their voices. They're not really in the CD Player. They recorded it a long time ago and you're just hearing their voices."

"Oh." Emily pauses, concentrating on the idea. "So when you watch tv and the show is over, where do those people go?"

Giving up, Nana replies. "They just go home."

Mom told me this story tonight and I couldn't help but crack up. Emily is six and in Kindergarten. She's not stupid, but sometimes I wonder if her blonde roots run a little deeper than some.

Of course I'm not blonde, and I have stories of my own, so what's my excuse right? :)

She's just to darn cute for her own good. I think she really liked the idea that 'Hannah Matanna' lived in her CD player and TV. I love this age when imagination is still so vivid and alive. I hate to see it fade as the kids get older. It's just so precious.

One bad apple won't spoil the whole bunch...Or will it?

Song Stuck on the Brain: It's been a work in progress today. Here's the list so far in order...Smack That by Akon, Into the Groove by Madonna, The Walton's Theme Song, God is Marshaling His Army, Andy Griffith Show Theme Song, and Genie in a Bottle by Christina Aguilera. My LF Syndrome has hit warp speed.

Ah, Heck. Now that I've titled this silly post, I'm singing One Bad Apple by the Osmond's. Sheesh.

Anyway, there is a point to the title. I've been teaching a pre-baptismal class to my nieces and nephew every Sunday morning. We've been going over the steps to making a covenant and this week we talked about repentance. What is it? How do we do it? Why do we do it? We continued this line of discussion, reading the scripture that gave the answer and then discussing it. The final question was, How do we know if the repentance is genuine? The answer was because you show good fruit, or works through your life. We discussed that and the kids got a kick out of comparing themselves to fruit.

I was really careful to explain that it was the ACTION that a person did that was good or bad, not the person themselves. So if you were doing something bad, you were bearing bad fruit, but if you were doing good things you were bearing good fruit. That was the end of the lesson.

Until after lunch when 4 yr old E. , 8 yr old A. and 10 yr old C. went off to play in the bedroom. C. is a bossy little thing that must control everything around her. Even to the point of telling everyone else how they have to play. Sometime the younger ones let this slide - sometimes they don't. This was one of those times.

E. wasn't playing store right, so C. fired her. Now E. is crying. I smooth it over by telling the youngest that if it's her store no one can fire her and to go back and play.

Pretty soon, E.'s back crying again that she's fired. So I go tell C., "You can't run everyone's store. Just run your own."

C. replies, "Well they own their own stores, but I manage the mall that they have their stores in so I can tell them what to do."

Good Grief.

"Sorry," I tell her again. "That isn't how it works. You can't tell everyone what to do."

Ten minutes later, the C. comes running in to the living room. "A. called E. a bad fruit!"

E. is hot on her heels crying for her mommy and A. comes out to defend herself. "Huh uh, C.! You told me to call her that."

C.'s hands go to her hips as she strikes the 'Oh-no-you-didn't' pose. "I did not tell you to call her a bad fruit! Now you're a bad fruit!"

"Am not! I don't think E.'s a bad fruit! I just said it 'cuz you told me to. It's your fault!"

HOLD IT! Time OUT!

Nana's on the job now. "A., it doesn't matter if C. told you to say it. It was hurtful and you know better than to say mean things."

It kind of disintegrated from there and both A. and C. ended up standing in the corner. E.'s tear are wiped as we assure her she's not a bad fruit.

And I'm left wondering, how in the world did a lesson on repentance become the latest way to insult each other? I think they all had cotton in their ears during that lesson.

I can't be too hard on them. Honestly it seems like something my friends and I would have done at their age too. I can see us calling each other a bad fruit.

Thankfully, once the time-outs were up, they all went back to playing store happily. Twenty minutes later, E. comes sauntering out of the bedroom and says. "I have to go on a three minute break."

"How come?"

"Cuz C. said to."

Oh, no. Not again. "C. can't tell you to go on break if you don't want to."

"It's okay. I've got a pair of Hot Twins to go see." Flashing a mischievous grin she wonders off into the kitchen.

Hot twins? Seriously? Angel and I just busted up. 4 years old or not, the child knows how to make believe. :)

I'd like to go take a break now. Think I could find a pair of Hot Twins?
A.