Parents, when your kids ask you a question that you don’t know the answer to, what do you normally do?

• Say “I don’t know”
• Make something up
• Ignore the question

In our house, we say “I don’t know.” However, I usually don’t stop there, I follow up with “Hunny, I don’t know but when Daddy gets home, let’s ask him.” If Daddy doesn’t know, we’ll do our best to find the answer and if this fails, then we simply say, “We really don’t know.”

Why do I bring this up? I’ve seen parents fumbling through words trying to come up with an answer so that they may not seem weak in front of their children. I’ve also been the recipient of the ignore-the-question tactic.

Years ago I read an article that contained two medical terminologies that I didn’t know. I really wanted to know what these two terms meant so I asked my youth group advisor who was a father and an elder. He ignored me as if he didn’t even hear the question. I sat there dumbfounded. I gave him the benefit of doubt, so I asked again. Same thing happened. This time I simply didn’t understand why he didn’t answer me. As persistent as I was, I followed him all evening and finally at the end of our youth group meeting, I asked again. Well, this time I had his attention. He turned to me and in an exasperated and raised tone said, “Lois, why do you keep asking me this question? I don’t know the answer!” I didn’t know what to say. I just left the conversation.

This had a very lasting impression on me. I still remember this incident to this day. Had he answered me with an “I don’t know” right from the start, I would have been satisfied and wouldn’t pursue him with the same question all night long. I believe he didn’t want to appear dumb and thought that he could shoot me off by ignoring me.

I did learn from this experience. I’ve learned to say “I don’t know” when I really don’t know. I want to be honest with my children. There is really no sense in trying to fabricate or ignore. I don’t believe my children think I’m dumb for not knowing or feel a sense of disappointment. In fact, my almost four year old recently taught me something that I didn’t know.

About a week ago when Matthew and I were reading a book, we came across pictures of rams, goats, sheeps, and other animals. When he saw the ram, he told me that a ram is a male sheep. I said, “Really? I didn’t know that. Thank you for telling me!” I then gave him a kiss and a hug. Now, do I appear to be a dork to him? I don’t think so. Did I puff up his ego? Nope. He didn’t really react to it. We simply moved on to the next page.

All in all, let’s be honest with our children about our imperfection. If we want them to learn godly humility, we have to start with ourselves.

I’m in my third trimester now and the so called “pregnancy brain” (This is my term. Not sure if anyone uses this too) has once again invaded my body. What is the “pregnancy brain” you ask? It’s a state of mind where one forgets the simplest thing and cannot express oneself at all. The best tactic is to point like a lunatic and hope your audience comprehends. This currently describes my state of mind, or lack or it.

Just this morning when I wanted my husband to open the dish washer, I said, “Hunny, can you open that thingie?” He then piped in and said, “It’s called a dish washer.” What a revelation! Oh yeah, it’s a dish washer. Yes, “thingie” is a word!!! I insist, and it’s an universal word. It can be used for almost anything. Even though it’s not the most eloquent word, it works!

Can you be cured of this “pregnancy brain”? Yes. The prognosis is good but the symptoms will last throughout the entire pregnancy. Recovery takes anywhere from three to nine months or more, and it also depends on when the baby starts to sleep through the night.

Reflecting back to my previous pregnancies, sometimes I see a little glimpse of hope. During my last pregnancy, all of sudden during a conversation with my husband, I used a big SAT word, “ubiquitous,” it almost knocked his socks off. Yes, he knew the meaning of the word, but just wasn’t expecting me to use it since most of my vocabularies comprised of “thingie.” See. . . . my college education is worth something. . . . after all, neurobiology was part of my major.

Even though I’m poking fun of myself, it does get frustrating sometimes not being able to express myself. Through it all, God is gracious and He enables me to carry on each day to serve my family. My three kiddoes are well fed, clothed though PJs are considered both daytime and nighttime apparel now, and most importantly, they are well loved.

Kinda cool… yesterday afternoon we had a very heavy hailstorm. Hail came down about that was about 1/8 to 1/4″ in diameter. Here’s a photo of our back porch:

Needless to say, this is not typical weather for “sunny” Northern California.

On top of that, when we awoke this morning, we saw that a number of the nearby mountains had snow covering. It was especially “heavy” (relatively speaking) on top of Mt. Hamilton, home to the Lick Observatory. So we tried to drive up there, but alas, they’d closed the road up the mountain to prevent a massive traffic jam of other snow-lookers. The best we could do was get this photo of the observatory from the closure point about 11 miles from the top (by road):

Very pretty sight, especially for those of us who don’t get to see snow-capped mountains in their locality often.

Tim Challies has been live-blogging the annual Shepherd’s Conference at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, CA.

He posted a summary of a message by Carey Hardy titled “How to Raise a Pharisee: Avoiding legalism in the home.” I highly recommend it, and it’s fairly short. To state the obvious, Hardy’s message is directed to help parents not raise their children to be legalists.

I recently discovered Monergism’s audio resources site where you can download free sermons (mp3 format) preached by many gifted preachers such as John Piper, John MacArthur, D.A. Carson, R.C. Sproul, Bryan Chapell, Alistair Begg, C.J. Mahaney, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, etc.

I typically listen to these sermons either with the kids during our sermon time or by myself after they have gone to bed.

While sitting next to me, Matthew played the Spell Time game and was able to spell a whole sheet of words all by himself without any assistance from me. After declaring his completion, I exclaimed in excitement because he was able to do it on his own and that he did it in a very short amount of time. I said, “Hunny, that’s great! That’s really awesome!” In the spirit of my husband’s previous post, I said, “Matthew, you rock!” Immediately he replied, “No!! Daddy rocks!” Hilarious! Now I just have to indoctrinate my son to say that mommy rocks!