Important Talk

When we first found out we were having a boy, we were worried that he might be overshadowed by his big sister. She has always been a talker and we figured with the studies that show boys taking longer to talk than girls and his older sibling already being a chatterbox, the odds of him keeping up were stacked against him.

We had nothing to worry about.

Caleb does not stop talking. Unless he is concentrating on his cars or trains or watching a show about cars or trains. Other than those times, he just likes to talk. Even when he should be napping, he likes to look at books and read them to himself-out loud.

The only time it gets a bit old is in the car. It is a constant stream of "Mommy, look at that!" and "Mommy, Daddy...Mommy, Daddy" until by the fifth "What Caleb?" and he finally continues on with his thought.

He was doing this in the car the other day. Since I was on the verge of losing my rapidly fraying mind, I said, "Caleb, you do not have to talk all of the time. You can keep some thoughts in your head and only say the important things. That way, people will listen to what you have to say."

His response was, "But Mommy, this is important!"

I replied, "Okay Caleb, what is it?"

He answered, "Umm, oh yeah-look at that!"

While I found the one tree out of a hundred that he pointed to fascinating, I realized it was pointless to try and reason with a two-year old.

I also realized I do that as an adult. I tend to think every thought I have is so important that I feel the need to voice them. It is so easy to do these days. I can update my facebook status so that my entire 500+ friends know what I am up to. I can write on this blog because of course my children are special and everyone would want to read about them. And my poor husband really gets the bad end of it-he has to hear me talk about my day, which pretty much is similar to all the other ones before it.

The problem with always sharing thoughts and chattering is that when I might have something important to say, will anyone really listen?

And, the more mindless chatter I give out, the better chance I have of saying something wrong. I can slip into gossip and slander so quickly that I have to work hard to backpeddle out of it. And really-once something is said, there is no taking it back.

"For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks." (Matthew 12:34)

Well, that does not make my heart look too good these days. How does yours look?