MIS-communication!

I came into the room and discovered Matthew eating a bowl of beef stew with tortilla chips sprinkled on top.

"Do you like that?"  I asked him, referring to his tortilla chips in the beef stew.

Matthew looked up from his bowl of food and stared at me.  "Not really."

"Then, why are you eating it?"  I asked nicely.

"Because I thought you told me to,"  he said.

"No, I told you the tortilla chips were for the taco soup."

"Oh,"  Matthew said.

I realized again at that moment how sometimes even though we think we are saying things so clearly, words and messages take on different meanings.

I still remember last year when Matthew and I made our FIRST ever freezer peach jam together.  After we filled all of the containers, there remained a little bit of jam in the bottom of a huge bowl.

"I think we should just put this leftover jam in the fridge,"  I said.

"You want to put that in the fridge?"  Matthew asked me in wonder.

"Um, yeah,"  I said, wondering why he was acting weird about it.

"You want to put THAT in the fridge?"  he asked again.

By now, I was wondering what was wrong with him.  I had said at least twice that yes, I did want to put the leftover jam in the fridge.

"Yes, what are you talking about?"  I asked.

"What are you talking about?"  he said.

"I want to put this jam in the fridge.  There's not enough to put in another container so I thought we'd just eat this in the next little while."

"You want to put this whole thing in the fridge?"  he asked.

My brain clicked.  "What whole thing?"  I asked.

"The bowl,"  he said.

I finally figured it out.  We were talking about two COMPLETELY different things.  I was talking about  taking the jam out of the HUGE bowl and onto a little plate and putting that little plate in the fridge.  Matthew thought I was talking about putting the Huge bowl in the fridge and thought that was weird.  I realized that sometimes we are not on the same level of what we're talking about.  Since then I have laughed about our jam experience.  And we have already planned to make jam again this year.