When your 5 year old leaves you speechless?!?!

Our five year old daughter, Carmelle, has left me speechless many times in the last week, as she’s begun to ask the tough questions, that many parents dread. Just when I was starting to think I might actually have discovered some of the answers to my own life questions;
she throws this at me, “So if God created me, how did I end up in your tummy, Mommy?!?!”
Ahhhhh….you are right God did create you and you were in Mommy’s tummy ahhh….God used Mommy and Daddy together in a very special way to make you just the way you are, a little bit of Mommy, a little bit of Daddy and a whole lot of Carmelle!!

“Oh, okay.” She said. Phew, I got off easy that time:)

Then she asked in the same car ride, when I hadn’t yet recovered form the first question, “Mommy, what do you want to be when you grow up?” I thought this one was easier; “But I am grown up Carmelle.” Easy done, I thought.

“No Mommy!!!” She proclaimed emphatically!
“What do you want to be when you grow up!!!???!?!”

Wow, I didn’t know what to say to her. I was slightly overwhelmed, as I realized I do in fact have a whole life time ahead of me, in which to set life goals and dreams, some long term and some short term. As I pondered these things, Carmelle grew more impatient. She wanted defined answers to her questions, and “I don’t know?!” Wasn’t going to cut it!

So my 5 year old caused me to dig deep within myself and realize what I want to be when I “grow-up”. This is what I came up with; I would like to be a published Author, I would like to be a Leader in my community, I would like to be heard as a Public Speaker, I want to continue my education as a Student; I want to become Grandparent’s one day with Daddy, to her children and I want to be a Runner again. She seemed satisfied with my answers and so was I. Just as I was starting to feel confident in parenting and abilities to answer my daughter’s questions, she came at me again, because we were driving down the road, there was no escape!

“Mommy, Santa Claus is real, right?!?!”

Oh, crap! With her sister in the car, I wanted to be careful, perhaps use words Cadence wouldn’t understand…the strategies of how to answer such a complex question eluded me.
I said something like, “Santa is real because we pretend he is real.”
Then I held my breath…”No, Mommy, he’s real because I saw him at the Mall, he’s not pretend!!”

Then I resorted to a good old-fashioned response, the trusty old stand-by, “Ask your father when we get home. Mommy is trying to concentrate on driving!”

Later that night, around dinner time, Carmelle decided to ask Chris a question, I gave him a bit of a heads-up on the Santa thing, (but that wouldn’t have helped him at all) She came up with another question that both of us were stumbling over, in amazement that she even thought of such a question. We then prolonged our inability to answer her, by praising her for such good question asking?!?

She’d said, “Daddy, is that a Masterpiece?” referring to the painting on the wall.

Ahhhh…No?!?

“How do you know it’s not a Masterpiece?” she asked.

“I suppose we don’t really Carmelle?!?”

“Then what is a Masterpiece?”

Chris and I looked at each other, he was already in motion so he kind of skipped out of the room, and I was left with the deep pondering of what defines a masterpiece.

Is it the world opinion that decides?; the partaker of that particular piece of art, the art world or the artist? What may be seen as a masterpiece by one, may not be seen by another. Perhaps that painting was that artists best life’s work, but did they know it at the time; probably not. Does one know when they are creating a masterpiece? Maybe.

But I’d think that it is not realized until one reflects on their life’s work, and sees then what stands out among the rest. Which project touched their heart and moved it like none other, and had the same effect on others.

So I replied, “A masterpiece Carmelle, is an extra special piece of work that stands out among the rest when someone reflects back on their life’s work.” Chris nodded in approval to my answer.

That seemed to work for her. Thank God, we can appear “intelligent” to our children for awhile longer!

And we were proud of our daughter for being able to ask such amazing questions at such a tender age. God knows we love such shining brilliance from our little girl who arrived to us 5 and a half years ago, in her birth moment, not responsive and needing full resuscitation, due to the fact she had no heart beat, no oxygen (for a scary amount of time) and myconium in her lungs and stomach. She is a little miracle who just keeps growing and growing!

Reflect on your life’s little miracle’s today!