It’s fun to listen to my children. Their hearts and their thinking processes all come out in a cadence of rushing words and thoughtful pauses as they try to articulate whatever is exciting them at the moment. Sometimes, it takes some patience to follow along. And sometimes it requires hanging on for a high speed chase to try and capture all their ideas. Sometimes, if I’m honest, I’m not all that interested in the topics they choose. When you get right down to it, I don’t really care about the box jelly fish Maggie discovered that can send a person to the hospital with a single sting. Or about the latest Super Smash Bros battle and which weapons they earned when they leveled up. Sometimes it doesn’t really matter to me how many trap doors they’ve built into the floor of their Minecraft monster prison. No, the details don’t always matter to me. But, the sound of their voices does. Knowing that thing they’re excited about in this moment matters. Hearing the words they choose to describe and explain and detail all those little personal pursuits and interests matters. It matters to how they see themselves and how they see me. It matters in helping them know that their voices count. Their thoughts matter. Their heart — and whatever it’s pursuing at the moment — matters.

This week, I noticed something when Baby Girl was in one of her seemingly constant streams of explaining this or that. More than once she said, “I’m sorry. I know I talk too much.” Somehow and somewhere she’s gotten the notion that she talks more than she should. It’s possible she heard that from one of her brothers. It’s possible she’s been corrected for talking at the wrong time at school. Or maybe she inferred it from a time when I said, “Mommy can’t listen right now.” Regardless of how she’s internalized the notion, I don’t want her to second guess the power and importance of her own thoughts and her own voice. I don’t want her to apologize because she has a lot to say, or because she has the gumption to say it out loud. I never want her to feel she has to apologize for speaking the excitement in her heart.