Do You Count All The Dice In Yahtzee!?

Our oldest is getting skeptical. Combine that with the fact that she's astoundingly inquisitive, anyway, and I'm thinkin' her mom and I are going to have to really be on our toes.

"Mom, this letter from Santa looks like your handwriting," she pouted. (It wasn't. Seriously, it wasn't.)

So, we do our best to answer truthfully and in a context that makes sense for a fourth grader, and, for now, we just have to show her that as long as there is joy in giving, that there will always be a Santa Claus.

And with this daugther, there will always be questions.

She'll be ten soon, this one. Since she could talk, she's been on world-record questioning pace. "Why?" questions. "What?" questions. "How?" questions. And, since she could ask them, she's actually listened to the answers, and she formulates the next question off the answer to the first one. Unless, of course, you don't answer the first one fast enough, then she has no choice but to go on without you.

Balancing the pride I feel for this inquisitive young mind with the fact that her energy peaks every day at about the same time mine wanes is a challenge that I don't often enough answer with my best foot forward, but I am proud of her inquiring mind, nonetheless. She might be a great researcher someday. She might be a great sales pro. She might be a great journalist. She might just be inquisitive for the sake of wanting to know. Heck, she could end up knowing more trivia than Cliff Clavin did on Cheers.

The Santa questions are to be expected. So are the Jesus questions. "Dad, if some people don't believe in Jesus, how can they celebrate Christmas? Shouldn't they still have to go to school and to work Friday, and why should they get presents if they don't believe?" Every night during devotional time, or Bible time, or Nancy Drew time, or talk time, there are at least a dozen questions. My job is to do better at realizing they're all important to the asker, and to try to answer in some way that helps her continue to be comfortable asking. That's harder than it should be, but I am really working at it.

It is late as I type this post, and as I burn some midnight oil to get some work done before the Christmas holiday -- I was startled when she just wobbled downstairs to tell me she couldn't sleep. "Why not, honey?" I asked her. "Dad, I just can't remember if you have to count all five dice in Yahtzee or not! Do you?" she asked me.

I walked her back up to bed, kissed her good night again and said, "Sometimes Daddy has trouble sleeping because I can't get a question out of my mind, too," I told her.

"You should go to sleep, Dad," she replied. "You have to go to work early in the morning. I'm just a kid, and we don't have school tomorrow. But when you get home tomorrow, can you explain to me how sometimes you count them all and sometimes you don't?"

Yes, you sweet little girl, I can. And, thanks for asking.

I pray that when the really important questions pop in to that beautiful little noggin, that she'll still want to ask her mother and me, and that we'll roll a Yahtzee! with our answers.