Thursday, June 3, 2010

Logic & Three Year Olds

This past Sunday we took a road trip to my uncle's house for a family reunion. Sunday morning started with a mad rush to get out the door by 7:30 a.m. so that we could attend early church. More than a few people were surprised to see us there at that time. I was a little surprised, too.

We ran a couple of errands after church, then headed home to finish up food preparations for the big party and to pack up all the swimming gear, extra outfits, diapers, sunblock, etc. that we would need for the day.

We arrived at my uncle's about 2 p.m. Matt and the kids got right into the pool. I spent the entire afternoon getting Jude dressed, undressed, swimming diaper on, then off, earplugs in then out. He couldn't decide where he wanted to be. When he wasn't actually in the pool, he wanted to be dangerously close to it, so I wasn't allowed to get too comfortable in my pool side chair.

We finally loaded into the van about 8 p.m. to begin the 2 1/2 hour drive home. I was exhausted, to say the least. However, Joel asked, "Mama, can we go to da zoo now?" He must have reasoned in his little three year old mind that such a town must surely have a zoo and he didn't want to leave until he'd seen it. I was too tired to remember to use three year old logic. I just gave Joel a common sense answer to his question.

"There is no zoo here, Joel. Besides, even if there was one, it would be closed by now." Undeterred, Joel asked, "Can we go to da zoo now?"

"Joel, I just told you, there's no zoo here."

"Can we go to da zoo now?"

Time to change tactics. "Joel, the animals are are all asleep at the zoo. It's their night night time."

"Oh. Da nanimals go night night? O.K." Then he settled into his car seat and was asleep before we hit the first stop light.

No comments: