Last weekend, Tim served as a counselor on the youth retreat that the twins attended, so our house was the location for Owen and Mama's Weekend of Fun.
I had forgotten, though, that Tim always covers the bedtime shift, which around here includes the bedtime reading session.
So my 6-year-old and I snuggled together the first night to read a section from The Beginner's Bible, a cartoon-illustrated compilation of Bible stories given to Owen by our church when he was about 3. It's really well done, with each story titled and written in plain language so kids can easily grasp the meaning.
Well, mostly it's written in plain language. Friday night I opened the book to the marked page and jumped right in with my most impressive read-aloud voice: "The Lame Man."
In the second I took to gather my breath for the story itself, Owen burst out laughing.
"The lame man? Why would they say that?!" he asked. I realized immediately how much influence his older brothers actually have on him.
"Well, it's a different kind of lame," I began. Still, Owen giggled into his blankie.
"It's not 'lame,' like, 'Dude, that is so lame,'" I said, but the surfer voice I chose to use only sent him into a wiggly, giggly fit. Not the state of mind you want at bedtime.
"That is so lame," he started saying. "Dude, you are so lame! Ha ha ha ha!"
"No, he's lame because he can't walk. 'Lame' also means you can't walk."
"Bwa hah ahaha. Dude, you can't walk. You are so lame," Owen said. At this point, I'm not sure even Peter and John could have gotten him to listen.
Finally, to calm him down I just kept reading until the next story when Saul sees the bright light and becomes Paul. It worked because there just wasn't much funny about that.
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