Sometimes it's Just a Little too Much Information

Several years ago when I was teaching Sunday school, I remember a child telling me all about how she was late for church because everyone had to listen to her mom yelling at her dad because he left the seat up on the toilet and she wasn't paying attention and she fell in and got wet and had to change her clothes. Or there was the time one child regaled me with stories of how his poop changes colors. That in turn, launched a whole conversation about technicolor poo which really didn't have anything to do with Moses, plagues, Egypt, or anything we were studying. In fact, I think it's a safe bet to say it had nothing to do with well, pretty much anything at all in the Bible.

Little kids sometimes share just a little too much information. My kids included. There have been numerous times, over the years, that I have wondered what the kids’ teachers must think of us. Of course, since I was the only one to attend parent/teacher conferences, I generally just blamed it all on my ex. “Oh, he must have gotten that from his father,” I’d say, dismissing the bizarre things my kids said or wrote in class.

Today, Brooklyn came home with this one.

It starts off okay. She thinks she’s on Santa’s nice list because she’s helpful to her family and teacher. Then she has to go and throw a random, “My family tricks me a lot” in there. I read that and immediately formulated some plausible excuses explanations.

“You see, Mrs. Land, Brooklyn has five older siblings who like to play pranks and have over-inflated senses of sarcasm. Austin and Savannah are the Jim Halpert and Pam Beesly of our house, and poor little Brooklyn is Dwight. So maybe they tried to get her to eat Play-Dough while telling her it was dinner. Perhaps they threatened her that she’d have to sleep outside with the alligators if she didn’t stop crying. And just maybe they might possibly have set her on top of the refrigerator while telling her they were going to leave her there all day. But, to be fair, they’ve never put any of her toys in Jello, so it’s not that bad, right?”

But then Brooklyn continues with, “I am not crazy. I am not bad like my brothers.”

“Um yeah, Mrs. Land, her brothers are, um, yeah I got nothing here. Her brothers actually are crazy and they do come up with bad ideas.”


Then I thanked God that Brooklyn hadn’t written, “My mom yells like a raving lunatic when I don’t go to bed like I’m supposed to” or, “The vein bulges out of her neck when my brother brings lizards in the house.”