but I love you! *squish*

Today Eli was trying to show Anna that he loved her by giving her a huge bear hug. Much to Eli's consternation, Anna didn't appreciate this and tried to push him off. This made Eli upset, who then - to prove his deep devotion to his sister who obviously didn't understand what he was trying to do - proceeded to lay on top of her and smother her with affection. This all ended with me having to break up a fight with the warning to Eli that if he didn't stop trying to hug his sister that he would get a spank! Would a mother really spank her child for hugging their sibling? Sometimes I wonder about the words that come out of my mouth. I say them without thinking. I think them without questioning if its what I really mean. Some days I just go on auto pilot and don't stop to consider what the impact of the words I'm saying might really be. Eli's response to my threat was "but if I stop hugging her, I'll stop loving her!" So sweet, so innocent, so confused. I'm glad we took the time to talk about what I really meant this time before I carried through out of frustration.

Spider Mouths

Ok, Eli said what I consider to be the most ridiculous thing ever the other night. He came into our bedroom at about 2 am scared because there were spiders in his room. Of course Matt went in and showed him there were no spiders. He came back at 2:30, again at 3, again at 3:30... this continued on until Matt said "There are no spiders, the spiders aren't real, you're just imagining them!" Eli's response was "The spiders in my room aren't real, just part of the spider is real." and when we asked the response was - Their Mouths. So my son was up all night afraid of spider mouths. At the time it was so anger-producing... now it makes me laugh. How do kids do this? How can their minds so bend the reality of life and instead see whatever they desire? Maybe that's why God tells us to have the faith of a child. Because they can look past the confusing "truths" we're faced with and just see the good or bad, the right or wrong... they see God with out all the colored lenses that adults do. And they can beleive that God can do anything, even things that aren't logical. Maybe I should spend more time trying to imagine spider mouths!