Bragging

This past Saturday I dragged the kids along with me on multiple errands since Scott was out of town. For the most part they did well, not complaining too much and seeimingly understanding my explanation that if we got all our chores finished on Saturday then we would definitely have a fun outing on Sunday (the trip to the Arboretum which I described in the previous post).

When we were in Bath & Body Works that afternoon buying our semi-annual supply of soap and lotion, the kids saw miniature containers of hand-sanitizer. They then proceeded to ask, rather beg, to each have one. I had no idea they were "popular", but apparently many second graders at Amelia's elementary school have them hanging from their backpacks and Amelia was in envy of having a similar item. I figured this would be healthy (?), and if a $1 item would satisfy them during the errand-running outing then so be it. I think Saturday afternoon Amelia and John each put on hand sanitizer about 10 times and they were proud of their new acquisitions (who knew so much fun could be had with hand sanitizer?)

Pastor Rachel's children's sermon on Sunday morning was about how God doesn't want us to brag. She explained that it is not OK to act boastful because since God gave us all our gifts (talents, possessions, etc.), bragging about our superiority to others is not right since God is the one who gave us the items in the first place. Great lesson. During her talk Pastor Rachel gave an example of how she had bragged as a child (bragging about getting a good grade on a math test to her brother, who was not as good at math), and then she asked the children for examples of bragging. One little girl raised her hand and stated that saying "I got invited to Julie's party and I got a goody bag and you didn't!" would be bragging. Rachel agreed.

And then came this answer from John.

John: "Pastor Rachel, I know that this would be bragging. Saying to all of your friends, 'I got a brand new bottle of hand sanitizer and you didn't'!"

Laughter errupted from the congregation, while I looked down half in shame, half smirking because that was such a JOHN thing to say.

John often says crazy, crazy stuff (I have provided several examples here before). And what is so awesome is that he honestly doesn't have a clue that sometimes it is not appropriate for the setting. So while half of me was feeling bad for him having made such a publicly strange comment, I love the way he is so innocent and thought that this would be the best example of bragging in the world because everyone should be excited to own their own bottle of hand sanitizer.