1 Mother 2 Another

We were heading to church on Sunday when
Maddie and I had a conversation that reminded me once again what a
smart kid she is.


I’d spent the past few days baking, stockpiling several dozen
cookies to donate to our church for a big neighborhood outreach
project they’ve got going on. Maddie, of course, has helped
when possible, though her motives are not entirely pure since
she’s always angling to lick the beaters. And as we’ve
baked we’ve talked about why were baking, since she is deeply
interested in understanding why baked goods are going out of the
house instead of into her tummy.

I should back up a bit more – the
week before we’d made a cake for a friend’s birthday
party, and Maddie kept asking if our friend would save us a piece.
This led to a long conversation about giving food as a gift, and
that we can’t tell someone what to do with a gift once
we’ve given it to them. So Maddie understands giving food to
friends – birthday cakes, a casserole after a friend’s
birth, that sort of thing- and she understands selling food, since
we’ve made cookies and sold them at the lemonade stand.


Which is why I didn’t understand Madeleine’s difficulty
in grasping the fate of the cookies she held in a box on her lap as
we whizzed down the highway towards the church. Maddie kept asking
where the cookies were going, and who we were selling them to, and
I kept running out of different ways to give the same answer.


The fact that Cora got up that morning at 3:30 a.m. for two hours
didn’t help my patience.


“Mommy, is it someone’s birthday? Are we selling the
cookies at church? Who are we giving them to?” Maddie
repeated for the fiftieth time.


“Honey, it’s no one’s birthday, ok? And
we’re not giving them to anyone specific. We’re giving
all the cookies to the church, and the church will give the cookies
away to people who work for our city, to say ‘thank
you’ for all the work they do to keep us safe! So we’re
giving the cookies to the church, and the church will give them
away as gifts. Ok?” I felt a headache starting.


“But Mommy, it doesn’t have any arms or legs!”
Maddie said anxiously.


“Yes, I know honey, the cookies don’t have arms or
legs. They’re just cookies. They won’t walk anywhere by
themselves – the CHURCH will give them away, ok?”
Definitely getting a headache.


“But without arms or legs, what can it do?” Maddie
said, bordering on tearful.


“Honey, the cookies don’t DO anything! The CHURCH does,
ok??” Where’s the $#@# advil?


“But MOMMY, the church doesn’t have any arms or legs!
How can it give away cookies by itself??” Maddie wailed.

Oh.


So we all explained the difference between the church – a
building – and the church – the body of Christ, the
body of believers gathered in the building. Maddie was hugely
relieved to have this mystery solved, and the adults were all
relieved to be moving on to another topic. And as annoying as the
conversation was, it served to remind me that Maddie is too young
to be deliberately obtuse, to be dense on purpose just to be
difficult. Which means that if she’s having a hard time
grasping something, she comes by it honestly and isn’t just
making Mommy’s life hard. I resolved to be more patient with
her, and to try to see things a bit more from her point of view.
She’s just a little kid.


I took my advil and got out of the car, congratulating myself on my
newfound patience.


“Mommy?”


“Yes, Maddie my love.”


“How come Cora can pick her nose and I can’t?”


Dang it.