Angels are beans

Last night I was doing family devotions with the kids. My mom sent me this great little hardback devotional book for children that was written in the 50s.
It has that lovely old book smell that makes you cough when you open the covers and flip through the pages. I have no idea where she found it and keep forgetting to ask. That, or she has told me and I forgot. It's probably the later.
Anyhow, aside from the language being a little old and the drawings seriously 50ish, it is a great little theological book for children. It touches on 48 basic theological points: everything from Is there only one God? to Why did Jesus save me? to How do we know the Bible is true?
It has a 2-3 pages lesson, scripture reading and then a hymn you can sing after. So far (we're only on ch 8), most of the hymns I can't even find in our modern hymnbook. But I try to think of another one or a chorus and we sing that.
Nater Mater and the little boy I babysit until late usually just play around us (sometimes trying to launch themselves over the back of the couch where we're reading) or play at the train table. I have finally figured out that if I can get the older 3 to color or do a puzzle that they will sit still and listen as well. Just telling them to sit and listen is a session in futility that ruins our whole devotional time with me yelling, "don't you want to learn about Jesus?" (or something really stupid like that). Um, duh mom, not if you're yelling at us. Way to re-enforce living like Jesus.
ANYWAY, I digress.
Like I said, last night we were reading Who Are The Angels. It started out, "A LONG LONG LONG TIME AGO, long before God made the sun and the moon and the stars, before He made Adam and Eve, God made some beings, or creatures to live with Him in Heaven. These beings are called Angels."
Mr. Smiles and Good Lookin' were fighting over a crayon color, so I chose that time to ask them, "what did I just read?"
Dear old, and may I add quick, Mr. Smiles spoke up, "Mom, you said that a long time ago before God made the sun and moon and earth and trees and stars and (several other things) that he made beans and he planted them in the ground to grow wings and called them angels. Mom, why don't our beans turn into angels?"
I started laughing which only confused the poor little guy more and made him mad.
I obviously had to explain the difference between beans and beings to a 1st grader who still has no idea who to spell. Once he understood, it became his new joke that angels grow from beans planted in the garden and he giggled all the way until bedtime.
I can remember being confused by the Pledge of Allegiance. The whole "for which it stands" phrase baffled me for the longest time. I always that it was talking about "witches stands" and could not for the life of me think of why we pledged to witches when at home they were considered bad. It pays to ask your children if they understand.
Ah, life with small children.