We often joke in our family that the word “oblivious” should have Jake’s name next to it in the dictionary because of the many times we have discussed plans as an entire family only to hear Jake say, “What? What are we doing?”

Well, my good friend Brenda’s youngest child, Ben, could probably fill in as the synonym for “precocious.” He’s smart, charming, and has the ability to leave his parents guessing much of the time. Here are two recent “Ben stories.”

Ben has become a big vampire fan this fall, fixating on the all plastic and blow-up versions people have put in their yards to celebrate Halloween (and for some that “season” seemed to begin in mid-September).

Well, at Brenda’s church a couple Sundays ago, they talked about God as the Creator in Ben’s Sunday School class. For an activity, each child ran, one at a time, up to the teacher, got one M&M from her, and said something God created that was the same color as the M&M.

Ben got red. His teacher, Angela, asked, “What’s something God created that’s red, Ben?”

She had already heard the standard answers; she was expecting something different from Ben.

Ben screwed up his face, raised his eyebrows and growled, “He created BLOOD! Hahaha.”

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Brenda and Bob, her husband, have wondered at times if Ben really does have a conscience. (Don’t all parents wonder that? We have–about more than one of our children–during different, awful stages. I remember praying fervently at a mom’s prayer group a couple years ago for Maddie to feel badly about SOMETHING–anything!–mean she did.) The other day Ben got into a little scuffle at school. The first thing he said to his mother when he stepped off the bus was, “Has my teacher called you yet?”

No, she hadn’t, but Ben told his mother all that had happened. By the end he was in tears, collapsed in a small heap on the driveway.

Brenda was amazed. Tears! Real tears! Maybe they were just for the fact that he knew he was in trouble, but, still… TEARS!

She put on a stern face. “Stay right there,” she said, pointing to the driveway. “Don’t move and keep crying. I’ll be right back.”

She ran inside and called her husband. “Bob!”

“What?”

“He’s crying. Ben’s actually crying because he did something wrong! He’s feeling remorse. He may actually have a conscience after all!”