We were sitting at the kitchen table playing with the play doh. She was making ” spaghetti and meatballs” and he was making “solid shapes”.

I grabbed a chunk of the play doh and started mashing and squeezing it through my hands. Transported back in time at the smell of the fresh new play doh.

Then I just listened.  I listened to the happy chatter of our 4 yr old granddaughter and 6 yr old grandson, as they talked about their lives!

And as I listen, I find out that the life of a 4-year-old in preschool includes taking a nap, and she is not real fond of this requirement.  It is in fact, a very traumatic event in this little girl’s life.

So apparently her big brother has come to her rescue, and has been giving her some advice on the matter.

“Did you do what I told you to do?” he asks?   “When it’s time to take a nap, you just lay down, but you don’t shut your eyes tight, just squeeze them almost all the way closed, and it will look like you’re asleep, but you can still see everything that is going on!”

Sounds like good solid “big brother” advice to me!  I ask him if that is what he did when he was in preschool.

“Yes! One time when my dad came to pick me up, he thought I was sleeping, but I could see everything”.

“Do you think your dad ever found out that you weren’t  really asleep?”   He assured me that his dad never found out.

Ahh…the “innocence” of youth!  Or is it?