Minds Blown!

This summer, as the kids lay in bed and are settling down and falling asleep, I've been reading "Little House in the Big Woods" to them.  It has been so much to read the book as an adult, which I enjoyed as a child.

The kids love to be read to at night (and of course, all research shows how important this is).  Well, I decided the kids are old enough to listen to a book that I want to read as opposed to three to five small picture books night after night.

They don't understand everything that I read -- let's be honest, as Laura describes how Pa makes bullets or how Ma makes cheese and butter, I don't understand everything that I read.

Well, we finished "Little House in the Big Woods," and went to the library to check out, "Little House on the Prairie," which we started last night.

The kids were listening relatively well as Laura, Mary, Pa, Ma, and Baby Carrie packed up and said good-bye to their relatives, and crossed the Mississippi River on the frozen ice as they set off to Indian Country.  They listened really well until the Ingalls crossed into Minnesota.

Minnesota took the cake...

Tracey: We've been to Minnesota.

Mama:  Yes we have.

Howard:  That's a different Minnesota.

Mama:  No, Buddy, that's the same Minnesota that we went through.

Caroline:  We went to Minnesota -- but they went to a different Minnesota.

...

and that is is the conversation we circled around for over ten minutes.

The twins especially could not comprehend how the Ingalls went to the same Minnesota that we visited.

Tracey could grasp the concept that it was the same Minnesota, but that they traveled a long time ago in a covered wagon, on a dirt road, and we traveled in a suburban on highways, but those sweet twins could not handle this information.

Caroline kept asking if the dirt road had lots of construction on it.  Howard kept insisting it was a different Minnesota.

Minds officially blown!