The Thoughts of Children

Here are a few recent thoughts and conversations from my kids:

Ethan (almost 9):
After his teacher told him about Al Gore offering a 2 million dollar prize to anyone solving the problem of Global Warming,
"I'll have to do some research on that. But I know we could make CFCs illegal ..."

Elena (6):
My little Elena is a thinker and planner. She has been drilling me with such difficult questions as:

"What does it feel like to die?"
"What is heaven like?"
"Is grandpa lonely in heaven without us?"

After I answer her questions, she still wants more details, so we have been reading in the Bible about the many mansions Jesus promised and that there will be no more tears in heaven. We also have been talking about heaven's "clock" and the clock "on land" as she calls earth. She would still like a scientific explanation of some of these things, but is accepting that she needs to wait for her understanding to get bigger before she can understand heaven and dying better. We have also discussed, how she will have to wait until heaven to understand some of these things.

Joel (4):
My little Joel is an independent thinker and feels free to adjust reality to suit his needs.
The other day when Anthony was telling Joel he needed to stop playing and start putting his toys away, he told his dad something like, "finame". And then promptly explained the meaning of the word, "When parents don't let you do what you want".
And on the way home from preschool the other day he informed his dad that he speaks "Chinese Spanish". It sounds something like, "Ed du ko me llama". When he got home, he humored us by telling his baby cousin, Tyson, something in Chinese-Spanish and then remarked, "He understands it, too."