Ramblings

Ethan and I attended Madeleine's school conference yesterday, and I'm glad to hear that Madeleine does not hold back from her "Can I tell you something?" meandering musings with her teachers.

At least she can't get as off topic with them as she does with her Sunday School teacher.  Madeleine is often the only kid who shows up in her Sunday School grade, which means she gets one-on-one time with the teacher and shares somewhat embarrassing things like "My daddy exercises, but he has still has a big tummy because he eats too much desserts."

Last weekend, when I arrived a bit early to pick her up from Sunday School, I got to overhear Madeleine showing that she TOTALLY GETS what the teacher was talking about.

TEACHER: So, you know, Thomas doubted Jesus, but Jesus wasn't angry with him.  God wants us to know that it's okay to have doubts.
MADELEINE: Yeah, like, before God created the world, it HAD to be a color.  Everyone says it was nothing but it still HAD to have a color.  Like, I think it was probably black.  It HAD to be, like, black or gray or white.  Just because it's nothing doesn't mean it's not a COLOR.  It HAS to be a color!
TEACHER: Hmm.  Right.  So, God says it's okay to doubt as long as we trust Him.  Do your parents ever tell you to do something and you don't want to, but you trust your parents when they say something is good for you?
MADELEINE: Well...can I tell you something?  At my school, there's TWO playgrounds, there's the kindergarten playground, and the regular playground, and there's TWO rocks, one SIDE rock, and one rock that's really ginormous, and we're not allowed to play on the big one at recess.  And there's this tree on the rock, and I used to be able to climb up to, like, the really high branches, but Mommy told me I can only climb up to the first branch, and I do this sort of RELAXING pose when I'm in the tree, like where I put my FOOT out-
TEACHER: Yeah, right, you trust your parents when they tell you not to climb too high.
MADELEINE: And can I tell you something that's kind of like a TRICK?  One day at recess, my friend came over to me and he said that there's a NEW TREE growing on the playground, and I went RUNNING over to see it, and it was a STICK sticking out of the ground, and he just STUCK it into the ground and was pretending it was a tree, and when I saw it he said, "Just kidding!"

You can see how well Madeleine was absorbing the lesson of doubting Thomas.  At least she didn't follow in her father's footsteps and tell her Sunday School teacher that she helped God create the world.

And at least in her 1st grade journal entry, shared with us by her teachers at yesterday's conference, about what superpower she would like to have, she wrote about wanting "Legendary Detective" powers rather than "Creator of the Universe," so I can rest assured she doesn't think herself TOO omnipotent.