On Children and Lent

Children are such amazing creatures.  Teaching them to be adults long before their time is an art I think...  Of course, in doing so we need to be scrupulously careful to maintain their childhood and innocence.  But teaching them to share, to be kind, gentle, loving, forgiving, understanding, truthful, straightforward, etc. is setting them up to meet the world as adults in such a fashion that they can't help but conquer!  It's amazing how a two year old really does understand sharing and love.  It's even more amazing to see them demonstrate understanding that they can get away with the opposite. 
Jude is two.  The things Jude says are typical of a two year old, but since I don't live in the same household, it constantly takes me by surprise how much he understands, and the things that he says...  Two is still baby in my mind, but not infantile, and that's where I forget to remember.  He has so much personality and character, and quite the imagination.  It's like his mother said: at that stage they're not quite kid yet but not baby either.  I guess they're just a human version of a spring zephyr.
Anyways... I do tend to get distracted.  I'm talking about Jude, but what brought me to this topic, or rather who is Quinn, the four and a half year old.   He was telling me about a children's tv show that they gave up as a "sacrifice" for Lent.  Now I get it that a two and a four year old might not necessarily understand fully the connotation of making sacrifices, but in their own young hearts, they get it on a child's level.  They are of the understanding that sacrifices make them better people, and that they make God happy.  An innocent child needs to know only that... and it's good enough for them.  It's amazing, and it's beautiful.  About an hour later I hear Quinn complaining about something (I can't remember now) and his mother told him gently that he should offer it up as a Lenten sacrifice.  He agreed and stopped his complaining.
This is setting a child up to be a heroic adult.  To see the supernatural side of our so natural lives!  It's how the early Christians were able to smile in the face of the roaring lions that were about to tear them to pieces because they refused to compromise, even just a tiny bit, their beliefs. 
and I'm distracted again...  guess I should shower and get ready for the day.