Yes, kids can be quite the little chatterboxes. I’m sure we have all, at one point or another, had an  endless conversation with our little ones about the latest Dora episode/all the cool bugs at the park/how they think Grandma and Grandpa are sooooo old. And in these conversations, we may find ourselves tuning our kids out and repeating lines like, "Oh, really?" "Uh-huh" and "Mm-Hmm" over and over and over.

I was at the grocery store this evening when a mother who really seemed like she could care less about being a mother, ripped a can out of her toddlers hands to put on the conveyor belt. Her sweet little blonde-headed boy kept repeating, "I wanna put it up there. Can I? Can I?" He was speaking in the sweetest tone but his mama responded by saying, "Give me that! You’re being such a brat." My heart broke for that little boy.

He just wanted to do something fun. Or maybe he thought he’d be helping his mommy. Either way, the woman was not paying the slightest bit of attention to what her son was saying. Seeing this made me make a quick mental note to be more attentive to what my children are saying when they speak to me. Instead of just assuming it couldn’t be very important, especially when we may be in a rush or focusing on something else, I think we need to take the extra second and make sure we really hear them.