"Jesus Has Brown Hair," among other things ...

Sometimes I am truly and utterly baffled by what kinds of thoughts float through Grace's head. Seriously ... what comes out of her mouth can run the gamut from hilarious, to mimicry (usually me), to downright confusing ... and this afternoon I had yet another revelation of the latter.

She was sitting at the kitchen table -- wait for it! -- coloring, while I emptied the dishwasher. Christmas music was on, CDs from past Sunday School Christmas programs, and we were both singing along. Every once in a while a certain word or phrase must have piqued her interest, or curiosity, and out spilled the questions.

"Mommy, why did Jesus come to earth?"

Oh boy ... start me off with a doozy, why dontcha ...

I did my best to explain the reason for Christmas. I've never been all that clever in bringing something so huge down to a four-year-old's perspective, but I thought I was doing an OK job. I finished up with something like, "... and because of that, some day we will all live with Him in heaven."

To my utter surprise, she looked me square in the face and rolled her eyes. "Oh, brother," she exclaimed, pure drama intact. "Yeah, when I'm DEAD!"

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A short while later, with Grace still coloring and I having moved on to "Ruth Anne's pork chops" for dinner, she started talking up a storm, although I couldn't quite figure out the drift of her monologue. At first I thought she was talking to the little pictures she was coloring, until I realized she was talking to me.

"Jesus is very important," she said, so confident and teacher-like. "And he is very strong ... (cute little muscle-motion here) ... and ... and ..." Pause, thinking ... "and he has something else."

"What?" I asked, curious where she was going with this.

"Something ... you know."

"What kind of something?" I queried.

Pause, thinking hard. "Well, he has a really good brain. And he has brown hair."

Silence. Back to coloring. Apparently this has been weighing on her mind. So glad we cleared up those specifics.