Kids and their perception on things...

Seeing as the girls are growing up on a dairy farm, they are getting far greater of an education than the average child today. They see stuff everyday that most adults don't get to see. However, since they are only 4 and 2, the perceptive that they get from these things isn't necessarily clear. Remember how I posted a couple days ago about the monsters? This is how they process stuff all the time. Its been about a year now, but shortly after we first started working on the farm, we lost a heifer calf. She died on the weekend and therefore we had to wait till Monday for the truck to come and get her. So we just kept her in the stall. Every morning when we got to the barn, Marissa made it her job to go wake up all the calves. Well I told her to stay out of that stall back when the heifer wasn't feeling well, so Marissa just carried it out even after she had died that she was sleeping. Soo, Monday rolled around Dad dragged her out of the barn before we got there one morning. Marissa found her and started asking questions...

Marissa: "Mommy, why is the heifer outside?"
Me: "She is dead honey."
Marissa: "What's dead?"
Me: "Kinda like sleeping only she isn't going to wake up."
Marissa: "Oh, ok! Are all the rest of the heifers going to dead?"
Me: "No, just that one."
Marissa: "Why did she die?"

*At this point I didn't know where else to go. I didn't want to tell a 3 year old that she got sick and died because then anytime I tell her she is sick she is going to flip out on me! So I explained that sometimes things like this happen and we don't really know why...which was true, her death was unexplainable.*

Marissa: "What are we going to do with her?"

*Again not knowing how to word this properly for a 3 year old, I explained that she went to Heaven. Dad came over shortly after the guy showed up to take the calf and Marissa proceeds to explain things to him*

Marissa: "Grandpa, did you see the dead heifer?"
Dad: "Yup, but she is gone now."
Marissa: "God took her?"
Dad: "No, the man with the truck did."
Marissa: "God has a truck???"

Now that she is older, she has seen quite a few pass and I don't have to do any explaining anymore. She knows they die and the truck comes for them. She has watched them load the cows and everything. Madalyn of course follows in her sister's footsteps and doesn't ask many questions regarding the matter. She is however, still a little messed up on the phrase "dead". Doug will be laying on the couch sleeping and Madalyn will say, "Yup Daddy is dead." Or the two of them will be playing doctor with their stuffies and next thing you know the animal is dead. The phrase is there, the concept, however is not! LOL

Along with deaths, the kids see quite a few births. The first time the girls saw a calf being born, they had quite different outlooks on the matter. Marissa was so sure we should call the vet because the calf had blood on her. Madalyn deemed the calf as poopy and decided we should go home. Sunday mornings I help out with Junior Church at our church. Just about every Sunday I ask the kids how their week was and if they did anything neat. So this particular Sunday I asked Marissa if she did anything neat. I wasn't prepared for her response. Mind you we have a class full of 3 and 4 year olds...

Marissa: "Yes I did and I learned somethin new too!"
Me: "What did you learn?"
Marissa: "Well I learned where calves come from. They come from their mom's butts! And they..."
Me: "Ok! Thats great Marissa...Grace how was your week?"

HAHA...Thankfully the rest of the class wasn't really paying much attention to her and we didn't have a bunch of explaining to do to the parents. I need to be careful what I ask!