Reincarnation and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Jason: I am sad that Grandpa Sol died - really sad. I still want to know if people come back again. If they come back a baby.
Me: I know, you've asked that before but we don't know. We don't know what happens when you die because we are still alive.
Jason: But Mommy, I just want to know what happens - that's all. You are not telling me the truth.
Me: I am telling you the truth, Jason. We don't know the answer. You only know the answer once you die.
Jason [exasperated]: But, then people WON'T remember once they are born new babies. They WON'T be able to tell us!

Sydney: Mommy, why in the old days did they have signs that said "Black" or "White" for where people with different color skin should go? I mean, in the days of Martin Luther King?
Me: I don't know, but it was wrong. It was wrong because we are all people and nobody should be treated better than anyone else.
Sydney: I know - I learned all about it in school. Did you know there was a lady who didn't know that people with brown skin had to sit in the back of the bus, so she sat where the white people sat. And the police came and took her away?!
Me: Yes, her name was Rosa Parks.
Sydney: Yeah, that was really sad. If I had white skin and you had brown skin we wouldn't have been able to sit together. But then Martin Luther King came and fixed it all.

In the old days...

Jason: In the old times, why couldn't people makes clocks, how did they tell time?
Me: What do you think they used?
Jason: The sun - they knew what time it was by whether the sun was up or down. They also used sundials to tell time. But they didn't have calendars, right?
Me: They used the moon as a calendar - when the moon was whole again, they knew that a new month had started.
Jason: Good thing we didn't live back then, because we don't know how to tell time by the sun and days by the moon!

Sydney: In the old times of the Pilgrims, kids had to work all of the days – cooking, cleaning, planting, everything. They didn’t just get to play. But we can, we have freedom.
Me: What is freedom?
Sydney: It means that you can play if you want to, or go to school. You can do anything you want – like play or do video games -- if your mom says it’s okay.

[Note: Right before bed I was reading the kids a Magic Tree House book about Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims, that is what sparked them to ask me independently about the "old times"]

Pain and movies

Jason: Do you know what? My ear was hurting so bad that I just couldn’t stand it. I asked God to help me feel better, but he didn’t want to help me. Why?
Me: I don’t know, Jason. Sometimes things just hurt. But you did finally get better, right?
Jason: Yes, I feel better now. But I am afraid I am going to have a nightmare from that movie at Lucas’ birthday party – Underdog. It was scary in parts, and I just can’t get it out of my brain. I know I am going to have nightmares about it.
[Jason suddenly developed a bad internal ear infection that was misdiagnosed as "swimmer's ear", and his eardrum burst before he got the right medicine - oral antibiotics]

Sydney: Why do they make scary movies? I don’t like it. Underdog had bad guys in it that scared me. I don't want to have bad dreams. I like nice girl movies with happy endings. Movies about nice things – why don’t they make more of those? Why don’t they make only those kinds of nice movies?
Me: Well, they think the scary parts make a movie more exciting. Even princess movies, like Snow White and Cinderella, have bad guys. But they usually do have a happy ending…

Chicken and babies

Jason: Do you know that when you eat chicken, you are eating a real chicken?
Me: Yes
Jason: But we're not supposed to hurt animals! I don't like that...


Sydney: How do babies come?
Me: Well, the most important thing is that there's a mommy to carry the baby in her tummy. But to make a baby you need cells from a man and cells from a women, then you put them together and that grows in the mommy's belly into a baby...

The new year!

Jason: What will we do in this new year?
Me: I don't know - all kinds of adventures I'm sure. What would you like to do in 2011?
Jason: Well, I am afraid to go camping, because there are bears. But I'd like to do fun things as a family - like maybe some hiking or skiing. I was going to say play lots of video games, but I didn't think you'd like that...

Sydney: You know what? I think 2011 will be even better than this year. I think we will be gooder than we were in 2010. We will listen better and concentrate better. And we won't talk rudely.