God and Flowers

Caleb, from the back seat of the van, begins to complain about something. It’s been a busy day, Aidan’s whining and Liam is yelling loudly in the middle seat. I cannot hear what Caleb is saying.
“What?” I yell.
More mumbling. Something about “skin” and “hurt”.
“I can’t hear you, hon!” I yell over the din from the younger children.
Somehow, I hear him sigh in frustration. I make a monumental effort to hear him this time.
“My skin is growing too close to my nails again! That means that when you cut my nails, it’ll hurt my skin!”
“OH! Oh, I heard you that time! Oh! Yeah? Your skin? Too close to your nails? Aw, that hurts, doesn’t it?” I congratulate myself on hearing him and on being sympathetic, then go back to trying to placate Liam and figure out why Aidan is whining.
Something from Caleb way in the back.
“UGH! Caleb, I cannot hear you! The kids are yelling!”
My frustration reaches a new level.
I wrench myself around to look at him, and his little beautiful face is miserable. My heart hurts a bit for him. Poor kid’s just trying to be heard.
He waits until the younger boys have quieted down a bit, then tries again:
“Why?”
“Why what, dear?” My head hurts.
“Why does God do that? Make my skin grow so close to my nails so it hurts when you cut them?”
Jim says something sarcastic while I struggle to come up with an answer to satisfy his question. A pause, then, from Caleb,
“Maybe it’s because he did so many treats. He did so many treats for us that he has to do something bad, too.”
I don’t know where it came from. I don’t. But I do know that I didn’t feel frustrated anymore. I felt calm. And so in awe of my Caleb. What if I hadn’t made the effort to hear him? I would have missed his striking revelation!

Another one with Caleb:

Mom, what does perfume smell like?

Perfume? Well, there’s a lots of different kinds.

But what does it smell like?

Well…a lot of it smells sweet!

Sweet? Like what?

Like…flowers.

Like you?

He keeps making me love him more and more! I am helpless against it!