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Friday, June 22, 2012

Conversations

One day we were driving to the hospital and the traffic was really bad and I was really tired.

"Wow," I said. "The weather is horrible today!"

Andrew looked at me. He looked at the beautiful blue sky and the brilliant, blazing sun.

"Are you tired or something?"

Apparently.

One day we were driving home from the hospital. This time we were in the van because we'd taken the girls with us. When Andrew opened the garage, Rachel was shocked to see that it was empty.

"Where is Grandma?!" she gasped, since Grandma's car was gone.

"She must've gone somewhere," we answered.

"But, where is the van?!" she asked.

"I don't know," we answered. "Where is the van?"

"I don't know!" she cried, clearly concerned. Then, "Oh...we are in the van."

A few days later my visiting teacher dropped off some cupcakes. I have had more dessert in the past three weeks than I have had in my entire life. Some of the cupcakes were mini cupcakes and the girls wanted those ones, of course. I watched as Miriam popped the rest of her mini cupcake into her mouth. Then she looked down at her plate and said, "What happened to my cupcake?"

"It's gone," I said. "You ate it."

"But where did it go?!" she cried.

"It's in your tummy. You ate it."

"No, I didn't!" she insisted.

"You did," I said. "I watched you."

To this very day I don't think she believes me.

One day we were driving in the van with Rachel and she mentioned that she was tall enough to touch the roof of the van while she was sitting in her seat, which reminded me that someone turned on all the interior lights of the van—the ones that don't turn off when the car turns off. So I reminded her that we don't play with the lights because if Grandpa hadn't noticed that the lights were on then we could have worn out the battery of the car and then the car wouldn't start and we'd either have to jump start it, which would be a pain, or we'd have to buy a new battery, which would be both expensive and a pain.

When I had finished my lecture she nodded her head and said, "What else about cars?"

"Ummm...I don't have anything else to say about cars," I said.

"Can you tell me something about something else?" she asked.

"I don't have anything to say about anything else," I answered.

"Well, what about..." she began.

"Why don't you just talk to yourself in your mind," I asked her, "Like Laura Ingalls does when she's bored but her parents ask her to be quiet."

"Because that's boring!" Rachel complained.

"No less boring than talking out loud," I said and then realized, "Unless you're an extrovert. Oh, dear..."

She probably is an extrovert. She loves to be surrounded by people and noise and action. Being an extrovert is fine but how in the world did we get one in our family?!

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