"Awww Mommy. Why is the church so sad?"

One day when my oldest daughter Niki was about 4 years old - we were out for a drive and we were sitting at the stop lights and then... in a very sad voice she asked me, "Awww Mommy. Why is the church so sad?" I wasn't sure what she was talking about until I started to drive towards the church and noticed what she saw as a sad face on the tower of the church. Now everytime we drive by, someone says, "Why is the church so sad?".

When Paige was about 5, and we were out for a drive, she was sitting quietly looking out the window. Keep in mind, when you are 5 and sitting in the back there isn't much to see in your travels (car seat regulations weren't quite the same then). It was an overcast day, a very light grey sky, no fluffy clouds just a solid mass of dullness. Then from the back seat you hear this sad little voice say, "ooooooooo mommy, the sky is r-r-ripping-g-g. I looked out the window and the clouds were beginning to part in one long strip and the blue sky was doing its very best to emerge. But to the little eyes in the back seat, it appeared to her as if this were a painful process. (of course I didn't have a camera on me, but the image below is a rough idea of the sky r-r-ripping-g-g). I've never seen another moment where the sky was ripping quite the same.

Now...when Holly was about 5, again.... during a car ride, we were just driving along in silence and everyone was deep in their own thoughts and all of a sudden up pops this little voice that says, "Anyway, I don't know why a whale would attack you!" Everyone just burst out laughing because we had no idea where that came from or what on earth she could have been thinking about at the time. Wait, let me guess - a whale attacking someone?? To this day, every once in awhile someone exclaims "Anyway, I don't know why a whale would attack you!"

I'm glad that my vehicles didn't have DVD players in them, and that my kids didn't know what an iPod was or what texting was back then...


I'll take these memories to last a lifetime over technology any day.
Bonnie