The Things They Know

Just a quick story I have to tell you about this kid...

Today, James and I were in Mal's room with him when Mal noticed that a page had fallen out of his Jesus Storybook Bible. It bothered him, and he showed me. So I said, "Go get the tape for Momma and I'll fix it." He looked at me like he knew I'd told him to do something, so he kind of walked toward his door and stopped.

I repeated, "Go get Momma the tape, so I can fix your book." He stood there for a minute, so I gave him some time to process, and then said, "Go get the tape and bring it to me, please" two more times. I told James I had no idea if he knew what I meant, but thought it was an interesting experiment.

A moment later, he went into the living room and seemed to have opened the correct drawer. We have 2 low-lying drawers that have various office supplies in them; pencils, envelopes, paper, markers, tape, staples, printer ink, two different cameras, etc. I couldn't see Mal, but I heard one of those drawers open, and that he was shuffling stuff around.

In case he'd forgotten, I said, "Get the tape and bring it to Momma."

He ran back into his room... with the clear packing tape! James and I laughed and congratulated him; I almost cried. Of course, I wasn't using packing tape to fix the book, but, oh my gosh, he went and got tape in a totally different room and brought it back to me. That's a lot of processing going on at once! So fun to watch this little guy grow. Such a blessing.

(And, yes, I immediately got the... whatever you call off-brand "Scotch" tape and fixed his book.)