Monday, 22nd October 2007.

Never work with children or animals

Yesterday morning, I came out of the shower into the dining room to find Joshua saying "A bee! A bee!"

"We've been talking about where Joshua's breakfast comes from," Emily told me. "I asked him about the honey on his toast, and he said it was from a bee. Then I asked him about milk. Where does milk come from, Josh?"
"From my cup."
"No, from a...."
"Cow!"
"Right," she went on. "And then we were talking about bread, and how you take yeast and flour and water and mix them all together. Then I got onto the butter, and I said that it was made out of milk, and I asked him where milk came from again. And he said 'Mummy's nipples!'."

I laughed, and went to get dressed. Having conversations with Joshua is relatively easy these days, particularly since he learned the word 'yes' - it's less a one-way repetition of everything you say and more a dialogue of sorts, albeit at a simplistic level. We're trying to teach him stuff without it ever becoming a chore, because as soon as you get there you have to stop. But he seems to pride himself on knowing things, particularly song lyrics. I've just taught him 'The Gambler'; next week we start on Gilbert & Sullivan.

The church service was lively and occasionally silly, with Vanessa in fine voice during the call-and-response delight that is 'Be Bold', shouting "No! No! No!" at the opportune moment before gazing around in embarrassment and wondering why she was the only one doing it. These sorts of embellishments are great if everyone does them and just excruciating if no one (or only a few) decide to take part. Some people, however, need no encouragement to keep going. Emily and I were in agreement that Vanessa would be the one who started the isolated clapping during 'Shine Jesus Shine', and I was thankful that we rarely sing that.

A few minutes later, we did another song about mustard seeds - a frantic, action-based affair that moved along at a frenetic pace. The required gesticulations were so large and elaborate that limbs were nearly lost in the process, but somehow we got through it. Josh remained highly amused throughout, although it may have been the DVD we were watching that showed a fifty-something youth worker demonstrating a curious combination of Makaton and airline safety demonstrations. At any rate, come the end of the last chorus he turned to me and said "That's a good song..."

Vanessa began to tell the parable of the mustard seed, while visions of old church musicals danced in my head. We watched a PowerPoint display that gave visual aids; a pile of mustard seeds appeared on the screen. All of a sudden a voice piped up, "Daddy, what's that?"
"It's a pile of mustard seeds," I whispered. "That man's got them in his hand. Aren't they tiny? But you watch."
Sure enough, the next slide was of an enormous tree.
"They grow into a huge tree! Do you see?" He smiled, apparently satisfied.

The next slide showed three images: a crop of wheat, glistening in the sun; a culture of yeast; and a bag of flour. It was the bag of flour that prompted most interest. "What's in there?"
"That's flour. They're going to use that to make bread. Do you remember, like Mummy was telling you?"

It was at this point that I think a light must have gone on in his head, as he recalled their earlier conversation about butter, because his next word, delivered in one of those momentary silences between one paragraph and the next, was "Nipples!".
"Yes, all right."
"Daddy's nipples!"
"Right, yes," I said, now increasingly aware of the fact that we were a couple of rows from the front and in close proximity to the microphone. "Now -"
"Nipples, Daddy! Nipples!"

Out of the corner of one eye I could see Emily's shoulders shaking gently, as she stifled the enormous guffaw that was fighting to get out. I made a mental note: next time I will leave the life lessons until after church.