How to say it

One of the interesting things with being around little kids is the occasional need to explain complex things in understandable ways. It really makes you boil things down to their essence.

Two things from yesterday:

1) At church, the pastor mentioned that a long-time parishoner had died a few days prior. He hadn't been at church for the last seven years, due to dementia (he'd been in a nursing home) -- but prior to that, he was very active in doing things for the church, as well as various community organizations. So, I got to explain "dementia": It's a type of getting sick, where you have a hard time remembering things. After a while, you don't remember your friends' names, or your family's names. And you forget how to do things like tie your shoes or get dressed. So you have to go live at a special type of hospital, where people take care of you.

2) They also had miscellaneous flowers on a table near the front door of the church, where people were encouraged to take a flower to remember this fella. My daughter said that flowers are beautiful, and I wanted to communicate that flowers being pretty had a reproductive purpose: Flowers are bright and shiny because that makes the bees want to come and look at them. When the bees go from flower to flower, they step in part of the seed, and it mixes with parts of the seeds from other flowers. This lets the seeds become "real" seeds that can make new plants when you plant the seeds in the ground. If the bees didn't step on the different flowers and carry the pieces of seed to other flowers, then the seeds wouldn't grow when you put them in the ground.


Breaking things down to their fundamentals: it's an enjoyable challenge. :)


--GG