Amazing!

Three quick precious stories about Addison and how she is blowing us away lately with her memory and listening skills!!

Samson:  Since Addison was born, we have been reading a baby bible to her.  Each story is only 3-5 sentences long, which is great for short attention spans however the entire book is very long.  Before saying our prayers and going to bed, we read several stories from this bible (we read from another one when we have more time before bed, but I will talk about that in just a second).  One day while we were playing in her room and I was feeding Caleb, she pulled out the baby bible.  I heard her mumbling "Samson, Samson, Samson" as she flipped through the pages as if she was looking for something.  Then she proudly pointed her sausage finger on a page and exclaimed "Samson!!  Samson, strong.  Samson has long hair.  Samson lion"  In the story's 3-5 sentences it discussed all of those things she was declaring.  The amazing part is....we had not read that story in several days or weeks!  We were SHOCKED...I never knew whether she was really listening to all these bible stories but SHE IS; this encouraged me so much!!!  It also reaffirms how important it is to put our children in loving and godly environments because they really are soaking up everything.  I will be even MORE protective about what her little eyes and ears see and hear!

Rebecca and Abraham:  Along the same lines, we occasionally read from a Children's bible which includes longer more detailed stories.  I love this book because every story points back to Jesus at the end.  Recently, we read the story of Rebecca and Abraham.  During the story there is only one sentence that mentions Issac's name but there is a picture of the three of them.  We have read through that bible several times and we only seem to make a big deal about baby Jesus, not any of the other babies.  After recently reading about Issac I decided to point out the picture of baby Issac, but all I did was point to him as I read the one sentence with his name.  A few days later she did the same thing as with Samson---flipped to that story and named every character.

Noah:  Lastly, we have really been trying to figure out a way to conceptualize obedience to Addison.  One day when reading about Noah's ark (one of her favorites...especially the part about animals) I decided to start talking about how Noah obeyed God by building the boat and etc. etc.  So for several days she would open the Noah book and say "Noah Obeyed God".  Then one day I said "Noah obeyed God just like Addison should obey mommy and Daddy".  I sorta left it there thinking should would not even connect the two thoughts let alone what obeying means.  Sure enough, the next day she pulls out Noah's ark and says "Noah obeyed God.  Addison obey Mommy and Daddy".  Of course I gave her lots of praise!  Now I know some of you think she is just repeating what I am saying, but the milestone is remembering the word OBEY and connecting the two ideas.  We use the word OBEY a lot when we are disciplining her (both proactively and reactively), so I hope that soon she starts to understand obeying is something GOD wants and that she should do.  I maybe naive but her hearing about God extra isn't a bad thing right?

The point of those stories was to say how completely amazed I am with how much our children learn even when we do not think they are listening.  They are listening AND learning.  So fun!!!!!