Johanna has been going to vacation bible school at the Calimesa Seventh-Day Adventist Church. Their theme is the Maker Fun Factory. She enjoys being around a bunch of kids her age. My wife has been taking her all week. Each day she comes home with another craft that they made. She really enjoys VBS.
Today it was my turn to take her. Jolene works tonight, so it was our plan for me to take Johanna tonight. Johanna was excited all day to go again. Unfortunately I got some bad news via e-mail and a text message. The message said that VBS was cancelled for today. The reason for the cancellation was bees. As I quote the message states, “facility issue with bees on campus and in the sanctuary.” I didn’t want to break the bad news with Johanna but I did eventually tell her. Her response wasn’t exactly what I expected.
I told her there were bees at church. So we couldn’t take her to VBS. She responded and I quote, “Daddy of course there is a B in VBS.” She didn’t really understand the use of the word bee. Nor did she believe me that we couldn’t go. I restated it a couple different ways and she finally understood that there were bees flying in the sanctuary. She then when upstairs to tell mommy.
As a parent we always need to consider how a child thinks. Sometimes their understandings of analogies don’t work. Sometimes they don’t comprehend the nuances of the English language. Sometimes they can only think literally, when we think in the figurative. In Johanna’s case, she was thinking in the literalness of the letter B. Not bees. How many adults remember what homophonous means, let alone a child?
Anyway, I thought it was something funny that I had to write about. Someday hopefully she’ll laugh about it in the future when she reads it. Tomorrow, if all things go accordingly they will have fun again at VBS.
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