A week or so ago I walked in on my four-year old talking to her little brother about how when someone dies they get buried in the ground and they don’t come back.  “That’s true,” I said, when she looked at me like she expected a reaction.

And then she said, very serious, “But Jesus came back.”

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And sometimes what’s going through their minds just makes you laugh…  

This weekend we visited my parents and went to church with them.  Their church is much, much larger than the one we attend, with a large cross-shaped baptismal pool in the front.  Since we got to church a good 30 minutes before service was to start (something my parents are used to doing, but which isn’t so easy on little ones…), we decided to walk the kids around and get some energy out of them before they would need to sit in the pew.

During our walk we stopped to look at the baptismal pool.  I quietly let Peanut know that’s where babies got baptized at Grandma and Grandpa’s church.  A few minutes later Monkey wanted to see it again.  When I lifted him up and sat him on the edge so he could see the water, he asked, “Where’s the stingrays?”  (To be fair, it really did resemble the touch pools at the aquariums we’ve visited…)

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No doubt about it, though, they are always thinking…

Mass usually only lasts 45 minutes at the church the kids are used to.  Since we had gotten to my parents’ church so early, Monkey was ready to leave almost before it even started.  He kept asking, “It’s over?”

Finally, he tried a new tactic,  “I have to potty.”  (Yeah!!!  He just started that phase of potty training this week.)  So I walked him to the bathroom at church.  I could tell he was disappointed when he said, “There’s a potty at church….??”  (I’m pretty sure he thought maybe we’d have to go back to Grandma and Grandpa’s house and we’d be done with church if he had to potty…)

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The post “Let the children come to me” (Matthew 19:14) first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.