Dirt Under Our Finger Nails

Andrea and Jenna were helping me weed some carrots and it had rained the night before so our hands were especially dirty.

Andrea tells Jenna that she has finger nail polish on so her finger nails aren't even getting dirty (even though I can't even see her finger nails for the mud). Her logic was that the finger nails were clean underneath all the mud.

Jenna tells Andrea that she has some polish too and her fingers are just as clean. So they argue back and forth for a few minutes, "No you don't", "Yes I do", "No you don't", etc.

Then Jenna in her loudest outdoor voice says with righteous indignation, "Andrea, I do too have FINGER PRINT POLISH and my hands are clean"!

Then they both giggle at the irony of what they just said and asked if I could help wash their hands.

Andrea had one of these kid sized grocery carts full of weeds at this point. On the last load she started saying "Beep Beep Beep" as she withdrew. I asked her what the funny noise was and she patiently explained, "That is what we do, when we are a truck and we need to back up". This was obvious and I guess their dad is a little slow.

That points out the importance of our perspective. Sometime we need to keep a positive perspective and sometimes we need to acknowledge the truth.

This story is from when the girls were very young, June of 1998.