Yesterday our speaker at our Sunday School celebration reminded us of a Chinese proverb: "Live as though you would sell your parrot." She said this because her African grey parrot has the intelligence of an 8 year old and the verbal habits of a 2 year old. I suppose you could say one should live as though you were about to put your children up for adoption too, although you don't need to farm them out to give other people lots of impressions about how you really live. Lately we've had our 4 year old giving lots of not-completely-accurate reports to friends and random strangers, while we look over her shoulder and mime "NO, THAT"S NOT EXACTLY IT."
Last weekend I took Mother's Day off, so we could spend it looking for migrating birds in the cold and rain. Katie then reported to her Sunday school teacher yesterday that the reason she hadn't been there was that we "went to another church and then to a lot of garage sales." Actually, that was how we spent our SATURDAY morning the day before (the other church was for a pancake breakfast). . .oh well.
I try to remember these things when Katie reports to me various crises that happen at preschool. If I don't check with the teacher there's no telling what is getting garbled in the telling.
